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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



MACAULAY'S 
SPEECHES ON COPYRIGHT 

AND 

LINCOLN'S 
ADDRESS AT COOPER UNION 



TOGI 



TOGETHER WITH ABRIDGMENTS OF THE PARLIA- 
MENTARY DEBATES OF 1841 AND 1842 ON 
COPYRIGHT, AND EXTRACTS FROM 
DOUGLAS'S COLUMBUS SPEECH 




EDITED BY 

CHARLES ROBERT GASTON, Ph.D. 

OF RICHMOND HILL HIGH SCHOOL 
AND COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, NEW YORK CITY 






GINN AND COMPANY 

BOSTON • NEW YORK • CHICAGO • LONDON 



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COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY 
CHARLES ROBERT GASTON 



ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
514.2 



FEB 26 I-914- 



tgfte gtftengum Igregg 

GINN AND COMPANY • PRO- 
PRIETORS • BOSTON • U.S.A. 



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PREFATORY NOTE 

It is generally agreed that by the beginning of the fourth 
year in high school the minds of pupils have developed suffi- 
ciently so that an intelligent reading of substantial arguments is 
not only possible but desirable. Yet frequently in the past such 
reading has been of pieces requiring too long-continued atten- 
tion on the part of students. Moreover, the method of reading 
has been to linger so long on petty details that the main drift 
of ideas has been neglected and the student has acquired a 
distaste for reading solid literature. In the present book the 
speeches are not very long. In fact, the two lucid speeches by 
Macaulay are easily read at a sitting, and Lincoln's crystal- 
clear speech is certainly not long. The editor has presented 
introductory and explanatory material to help the student to 
understand what the speakers accomplished in their day and 
generation by the speeches and what large important ideas were 
developed to audiences in England and America. The speeches 
are edited as containing subject matter that needs to be under- 
stood in a general way in order to be appreciated ; yet when an 
allusion is entirely clear from the drift of the paragraph, the 
editor has not thought it necessary to burden the pupil's mind 
with useless information about the point alluded to by the 
speaker. The editor's aim in brief may be said to be to fit the 
speeches into the intellectual and social lives that the students 
are leading while the book is in their hands. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Introduction to Macaulay's Speeches on Copyright . 3 

Macaulay's Fortunate Life (1800-1859) 3 

The Significance, Meaning, and History of Copy- 
right 6 

The Parliamentary Debates of 1841 and 1842 on 

Copyright 9 

Useful Books for Reference 16 

Macaulay's Copyright Speech of 1841 18 

Macaulay's Copyright Speech of 1842 35 

Comments, Topics, and Questions on Macaulay's Copy- 
right Speeches . . .' 43 

Introduction to Lincoln's Address at Cooper Insti- 
tute 49 

Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) 49 

The Basis of the Address at Cooper Institute (Doug- 
las's Columbus Speech) 55 

Circumstances of the Delivery and Publication of 

THE Address 58 

The Effectiveness of the Address 63 

Useful Books for Reference 66 

Lincoln's Address at Cooper Institute 68 

Comments, Topics, and Questions on Lincoln's Address 
AT Cooper Institute 90 

Notes 

Macaulay's Copyright Speeches 95 

Lincoln's Address at Cooper Institute 99 

V 



\ 



MACAULAY'S SPEECHES ON 
COPYRIGHT 



,\\ 



INTRODUCTION TO MACAULAY'S SPEECHES 
ON COPYRIGHT 

MACAULAY'S FORTUNATE LIFE (1800-1859) 

There was a great quartet of prose writers in the so-called 
Victorian Age of English literature. Thomas Babington Ma- 
caulay was one of them ; Carlyle, Dickens, and Thackeray 
were the other three. These four men were alike in some re- 
spects, particularly in their extended popularity, but Macaulay 
was different from the other three in respect to revelation of 
himself in his books. Of Dickens you can get a fair idea from 
his novels, such as " David Copperfield." Thackeray, too, can be 
seen easily in several of his novels which give realistic pictures 
of his own personality and life. Carlyle's rugged personality 
is stamped on every page of his works. But about Macaulay 
you can learn almost nothing from his books ; that is, you can 
find something about his intellectual traits — his thoroughness, 
his immense capacity for seizing and presenting facts, his as- 
sured certainty of expression — but from the very nature of 
his literary productions you can find little about the man him- 
self, about his real personality. That is a reason why it is worth 
while to read a good biography of him. There is no better biog- 
raphy of Macaulay than that by his nephew, G. O. Trevelyan, 
which through letters and diaries and recollections of relatives 
and friends reveals the kind of man Macaulay was and tells 
fully the details of his fortunate life. In place of Trevelyan's 
admirable book, if that is not available, a short chronicle of 
important events in Macaulay ^s life, with special emphasis on 

3 



4 MACAULAY 

his work in Parliament, may serve as partial introduction to 
the reading of two of Macaulay's most effective parliamentary 
speeches. 

Macaulay's family were Scotch in origin, though he was bom 
at Rothley Temple, in Leicestershire, England. His father, 
Zachary Macaulay, gained considerable reputation as a reformer 
by his agitation for the abolition of slavery in the West Indies. 
Thomas Babington Macaulay lived in London as a boy. He 
showed remarkable memory and power over language, even 
when very young. At Trinity College, Cambridge, which he 
entered when eighteen years old, he took prizes for English 
verse and for a Latin declamation, was a prominent member 
of the Union Debating Society, and in 1824 was elected to a 
fellowship. 

At the age of twenty-six he was admitted to the bar, but did 
not care for law practice, preferring literary work. His poems 
— '' Ivry,'' ^^ The Spanish Armada," and ^^ Naseby" — and his 
essays published in Knighfs Quarterly Magazine and in the 
Edinburgh Review were considered by his contemporaries the 
productions of an unusually brilliant young man. For thirty 
years he went on writing essays, which became increasingly popu- 
lar, and sometimes he wrote additional poems. Some of the best 
known of these essays are those on Milton, Addison, Clive, and 
Hastings. 

In 1830 he entered Parliament. His success as a member 
of the House was immediate and emphatic. His speeches in 
favor of the bill for the removal of Jewish disabilities and in 
favor of the Reform Bill for the more equitable distribution 
of membership in the House according to the population and 
wealth of sections of the country showed his solid and substantial 
qualities as an orator. At the close of his Reform Bill speech, 
the Speaker of the House sent for him and said that in all his 
prolonged experience he had never seen the House in such 
a state of excitement. Everybody complimented the young 



INTRODUCTION 5 

member. About this time he began a letter to his sister Hannah, 
as follows : 

To Hannah M. Macau lay 

London, September 13, 1831 
My dear Sister, — 

I am in high spirits at the thought of seeing you all in London, and 
being again one of a family, and of a family which I love so much. 
It is well that one has something to love in private life ; for the aspect 
of public affairs is very menacing — fearful, I think, beyond what people 
in general imagine. Three weeks, however, will probably settle the 
whole, and bring to an issue the question. Reform or Revolution. One 
or the other I am certain that we must and shall have . . . 

Ever yours, 

T. B. M. 

After three intensely industrious years in Parliament he gave 
up his seat and was engaged thereafter for a period of five 
years in working out a penal code and an educational system 
for India as a resident legal adviser to the Supreme Council. 
On his return to England from India, rich from the big salary 
he had received, he was reelected to Parliament, this time as a 
member representing Edinburgh. In 1839 ^^ joined the Cabinet, 
as Secretary at War. He continued his literary efforts mean- 
while, publishing among other things ^^ The Lays of Ancient 
Rome." During his active political life he liked to retire to his 
library and work on his ^* History of England from the Acces- 
sion of James II." No person who lived so much in his library 
ever had so great an effect on legislation as had Thomas B. 
Macaulay. Two of the speeches which had extraordinary effect 
in the House while Macaulay's powers as a speaker were at 
their best were his two copyright speeches, printed elsewhere in 
this volume. 

Though he was defeated for Parliament at a general election 
in 1847 ^^^ considered this defeat the end of his labor in the 
House, he was triumphantly reelected in 1852 without any per- 
sonal canvass. However, after his return to Parliament this time 



6 MACAULAY 

he made few speeches, for he was engrossed in his monumental 
history of England. He retired from political life in 1856. 

The next year he was made Baron Macaulay of Rothley in 
recognition of his services to his own country in Parliament, to 
India by his codification of the laws and his arrangement of an 
educational system, and to the world by the publication of his 
poems, his history, and his essays. He died in 1859. Though he 
never married, he had always been devoted to his sister and the 
other members of his family, and he was beloved by a wide circle 
of distinguished friends, and admired and respected by all English- 
speaking people. No wonder he himself toward the end of his days 
felt like speaking of his life as one truly marked by good fortune. 

THE SIGNIFICANCE, MEANING, AND HISTORY OF 
COPYRIGHT 

The question of copyright might seem to school or college 
boys and girls a little remote from their own interests. Yet 
really copyright is a matter which practically concerns all per- 
sons who buy books. The cost of a book is made up of the 
actual outlay for the setting up of the book in type, the making 
of the plates, the procuring of book-paper, the printing and 
binding o^ the book, the expenses of selling (advertising, office 
expenses, etc.), the amount paid to the author outright or in 
royalties, and thp profit of the publisher. Mr. George Haven 
Putnam in a fair-minded book published in 1897, entitled 
"Authors and Publishers," asserts that the average return 
coming to authors from their royalties represents considerably 
more than half the net profits. 

The amount paid to the author, therefore, makes an appre- 
ciable difference in the cost of the book. Were it not for 
copyright, the author might receive nothing. In an article on 
book-publishing and its present tendencies, in The Atlantic 
Monthly^ April, 19 13, Mr. George P. Brett, president of a 



INTRODUCTION 7 

New York publishing house, says that the successful experiments 
in the publishing of cheap editions of books in Germany and 
France are usually with those books which are out of copy- 
right and consequently pay no royalties to authors, or with 
those books for which a low rate of royalty can be arranged. 

Several publishers in the United States have already brought 
out, like the German and French publishers referred to by Mr. 
Brett, a considerable number of series of cheap and attractive 
editions of staple books the copyrights of which have expired. 
Practically all the books thus far named in college entrance 
lists are books which have outlived their copyright period and 
are still considered the best. Some New York publishers who 
until recently have made a business of publishing books the 
copyrights of which have run out have found it necessary to 
change their kind of business, owing to the recent extension of 
the copyright period in the United States. Such publishers are 
now taking up the work of publishing cheaper editions of cur- 
rent books with the owners of whose copyrights arrangements 
can be made for the payment of insignificant royalties. It thus 
becomes clear that the subject of copyright really concerns 
almost every one who has had a school or college education; 
since as a person becomes trained in the schools he is likely to 
acquire the habit of buying long-established books or books fresh 
from the minds of their authors, and since copyright has an 
appreciable influence on the cost of books. 

Again, the subject of copyright as treated by Macaulay in 
particular is interesting because in his treatment of the subject 
Macaulay ranges through the greatest authors in English and 
Continental literature and tells especially many important and 
entertaining facts about English authors. With the copyright 
speeches of Macaulay as a basis it would be possible to make 
a review of English literature since Shakespeare's time. 

From what has been said thus far, perhaps some idea can 
be obtained as to what copyright is. Copyright is the right given 



8 MACAULAY 

by law to writers to have their literary productions printed and 
sold for a limited time without fear that any unauthorized person 
will print and sell the same thing ; or if any person not author- 
ized should print the work and offer it for sale, copyright gives 
the author or the person to whom he disposes of his copyright 
legal redress. Here is a dictionary definition of copyright : 

Exclusive right given by law for term of years to author, designer, 
etc., or his assignee to print, pubUsh, or sell copies of his original 
work. — The Concise Oxford Dictionary. 

Just what the nature of the right is and the reasons why laws 
regulating the right should be made, are matters that have been 
long in dispute. One view is that the right should be no excep- 
tion to the general laws of trade and that it should be strictly 
limited in duration. Another view is that a man's literary work 
is his property as much as his house or his money; that this 
literary property should be owned absolutely, without limitation 
in time, until sold or otherwise disposed of. From almost any 
point of view, as Macaulay himself says in the early part of one 
of his copyright speeches, copyright appears to be a kind of 
monopoly, based on the principle that a man should be protected 
in the fruits of his work. 

The history of the steps in the development of copyright in 
England from the time of the invention of printing to the present 
can be told briefly. After the invention of printing, the king or 
the universities granted licenses restricting in a measure the 
unlimited reproduction of literary works. A licensing act in 1662 
prohibited the printing of any work without the consent of the 
owner. Under this act Milton obtained a license for ^^ Paradise 
Lost." In 1667 he signed an agreement with Samuel Simmons 
for the copyright, and in 1680 Milton's widow settled all claims 
upon Simmons for ;^8. Simmons thus became owner of the 
copyright, which was then understood to be perpetual. See 
Macaulay 's reference on page 28 to the operation of this act. 



INTRODUCTION 9 

This act expired in 1 679, and was not renewed. The first definite 
statute on the subject in England set the period for the posses- 
sion of the exclusive right of publication of a literary work at 
fourteen years (Statute of 1709). At the end of the fourteen 
years the sole right of printing or disposing of copies could be 
obtained for another fourteen years if the author were alive at 
the end of the first fourteen. About a hundred years later an 
act of Parliament substituted for the two periods of fourteen 
years a single term of twenty-eight years from the date of pub- 
lication, and added the residue of his natural life if the author 
were alive at the expiration of the twenty-eight-year period. This 
was the law at the time when Macaulay spoke on the subject in 
the House of Commons in 1841. 



THE PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES OF 1841 AND 1842 
ON COPYRIGHT 

In the London Times for February 6, 1841, there may be 
found this brief editorial summary of part of the proceedings in 
the House of Commons for the day before : 

Mr. Sergeant Talfourd then moved the second reading of the Copy- 
right Bill. Mr. Macaulay made a long and clever speech against it, 
and the second reading was defeated by a majority of 7. 

This ended further consideration of the bill proposed by the 
eminent lawyer, Talfourd. Macaulay^'s speech was evidently ef- 
fective in defeating this measure, the object of which was to ex- 
tend the period of copyright in a book to sixty years, reckoned 
from the death of the writer. 

A short summary of what Mr. Sergeant Talfourd said in 
moving the second reading of his bill will make clear what argu- 
ments there were for its passage. Talfourd said that he would 
not occupy the attention of the House for any length of time 
on the present occasion, as the subject had been already fully 



lO MACAULAY 

discussed. He would only state, with respect to the objections 
which were made to the term of sixty years fixed on by the bill, 
that he regarded that term as an amicable compromise between 
the extreme justice of a perpetual copyright and the injustice of 
the present term of twenty-eight years. But those who thought 
sixty years too long would not surely object to fifty years, which 
was the term selected in the bill introduced into the French Cham- 
ber of Deputies by the Minister of Public Instruction, who de- 
clared his conviction that perpetual copyright would be the most 
just. Talfourd asked those who were favorable to even this term 
of fifty years to vote for the second reading. Were not authors 
as fully entitled to the profits accruing from the creations of their 
own minds as those engaged in the pursuits of commerce and 
agriculture to the proceeds of their goods and land ? He would 
not pursue an argument of which the justice was so manifest ; 
he would only add that with one or two exceptions the pub- 
lishers were satisfied with the provisions of the bill that he had 
introduced. With respect to the public, he had always contended 
that cheapness was not more desirable in the productions of 
literary men than it was in the assistance of lawyers and medical 
men. The public could not have literary works of first-rate 
talent without paying well for them. It was said, by those who 
supported the theory that monopolies raised prices, that books 
would be made dearer by extending the term of copyright ; but 
that increase of price was imperatively demanded as an act of 
justice to the author and his family. He begged to move that 
the bill be read a second time. 

Then came Macaulay's speech against the bill. The speech 
was frequently interrupted by cries of " Hear, hear," by cheers, 
and at the end was received with ^' loud cheers." In closing 
his speech, Macaulay said that he regretfully moved that the 
bill be read a second time this day six months, that is, never. 
His motion was the technical one to make when a member 
wished to table a measure indefinitely. Those who applauded 



INTRODUCTION II 

evidently intended to vote against any further consideration of 
the bill introduced by Talfourd. 

After Macaulay had spoken, Sir R. H. Inglis and Mr. Ser- 
geant Talfourd replied to his arguments. Talfourd said that he 
trusted that the petitions which had been presented in favor of 
his bill by such men as Wordsworth, Rogers, Campbell, Cole- 
ridge, and the son of Sir Walter Scott would outweigh the 
eloquence of the right honorable gentleman (Macaulay), and 
would induce the House to consent to his bill. 

The House then divided, that is, those favorable to the bill 
passed into one lobby of the House and those opposed to the 
bill passed into another lobby, as is the custom of taking votes 
in Parliament. The result was : 

For the second reading 38 

Against the second reading 45 

Majority against further consideration of the bill . 7 

Thus Macaulay was successful in carrying his point the first 
time that he spoke in the House of Commons on the subject 
of copyright. 

The second time he was even more successful, for he made 
a proposition which became the basis for the copyright law as 
it was in the United Kingdom from the year 1842 up to the 
end of 191 1. Lord Mahon, a member of Parliament, was dis- 
appointed in 1 8 41 that the measure proposed by Talfourd had 
been defeated by Macaulay's speech, and early in the next year 
he proposed a new Copyright Bill. On moving the second read- 
ing of his bill on March 16, 1842, he suggested that the discus- 
sion of the principle of the measure be postponed until the House 
should reach the third clause of the bill when in committee. 
Mr. Macaulay concurred in the postponement, saying, as reported 
in Hansard's " Parliamentary Debates," that the preceding year 
he would not have divided the House on the second reading of 
Mr. Sergeant Talfourd's bill if language had not been used 



12 MACAULAY 

during the debate which rendered the step, as he thought, im- 
perative upon him. The measure now proposed by Viscount 
Mahon he considered a great improvement on that of last year, 
though there were still a great many defects of detail which he 
would wish to see altered. Upon the whole, however, he was 
not without hopes that the House might be enabled to arrive 
at a satisfactory measure, and he hoped that the discussion of 
the principle of the measure would be postponed, as Lord Mahon 
requested. The bill was then read a second time, with the under- 
standing that it was to be committed to a committee of the 
whole House for full debate on the provisions of its third clause. 
On April 6, 1842, the House went into committee for the 
consideration of Lord Mahon 's bill, with Mr. Thomas Greene 
acting as chairman. A report of the proceedings, compiled from 
the account in the London Times for April 7 and from the book, 
'' Parliamentary Debates," published by Hansard, follows : 

The House of Commons last night went into committee on the Copy- 
right Bill, the third section whereof proposed that the copyright of 
literary works should in future continue for the author's life, and 
twenty-five years further. Lord Mahon, the originator of the bill, 
began the discussion by explaining the general scope of the measure, 
of which the third clause was the leading feature. He said that in 
venturing to bring before the House the claims of men of letters he 
deplored the absence of their distinguished advocate, Mr. Sergeant 
Talfourd. No party feeling could prevent him from regretting that the 
House was no longer adorned by the character and talents of one who, 
though he had left behind him a majority of political opponents, had 
not left behind him a single personal enemy. It was at the request and 
with the sanction of that estimable and eloquent gentleman that he had 
undertaken the task of bringing forward this measure for the extension 
of the period of copyright. He remarked upon the change in the posi- 
tion of literary men produced by the cessation of that patronage which 
they were wont to receive from the great untiFthe time of Sir Robert 
Walpole ; and sketched the progress of legislation on this subject from 
the reign of Anne to the present time. The proposed enactment might, 
to a certain extent, keep up the price of books, but the additional six- 
pence in cost would be not unwillingly paid. Authors would be induced 






INTRODUCTION 



13 



by the extension of the term to look less to present and ephemeral 
fame and more to the permanent taste and judgment of the country. 
It was for the national honor and interest to evince a sympathy with 
literature. Not only authors, but the three classes connected with them 
— the publishers, the printers, and' the booksellers — were all favorable 
to the present bill, though three of the four classes had opposed the bill 
of last year. 

Mr. Macaulay, concurring in the objects of Lord Mahon, yet 
thought they would be better accomplished by protecting each 
copyright for the term of the life of the author or of forty-tv^o 
years, v^hichsoever of those terms should be of the longest dura- 
tion. This extension, which gave fourteen years in addition to 
the present period of twenty-eight, would best guard against the 
uncertainty of human life and most nearly equalize the protec- 
tion to the earlier and to the later productions of the same 
writer. He illustrated this view by a multitude of striking 
examples, by which he showed that Lord Mahon's measure 
gave the longest copyright to the crude productions of youth, 
and the shortest to the matured works of middle and later life. 

Sir R. H. Inglis then said that no one could be expected to 
follow so learned and eloquent a speech as the one that the 
House had just listened to. He said that during his whole life 
he had never known any person but one able to follow a speech 
so full of research and adorned with such an array of names 
of those eminent in literature. Yet he wished to urge against 
Mr. Macaulay's plan that it would take away from an aged 
author, dying forty-two years after his publication of some 
valuable work, .he consolation of being able to provide for his 
family by a posthumous copyright. He mentioned various in- 
stances in which eminent works of our own contemporaries 
would have derived less protection from Mr. Macaulay's term 
than from Lord Mahon's. 

Mr. Wakley saw no occasion to make any change at all in 
the existing law. In a humorous, though desultory, speech he 
entertained the House for some time. 



14 MACAULAY 

Mr. Milnes denied that prices are materially augmented by 
copyright, and instanced high prices of various books in which 
no copyright subsists. 

The first and second sections of Lord Mahon's bill were then 
passed. 

The third section was read, partially as follows : 

And be it enacted that the copyright in every book which shall, after 
the passing of this act, be pubHshed in the lifetime of its author, shall 
endure for the natural Hfe of such author, and for the further term of 
twenty-five years ^ commencing at the time of his death, and shall be the 
property of such author and |his assigns : provided always that in no 
case shall the whole term be less than twenty-eight years, . . . 

Mr. Macaulay then proposed the amendment already referred 
to by him, that the words ^^ and for the further term of twenty- 
five years commencing at the time of his death " be stricken 
out and that in place of the words ^' twenty-eight years " the 
words ^* forty-two years " be substituted. 

After Sir Robert Peel had said that he believed seven years 
should be substituted for twenty-five years, but that he favored 
Mr. Macaulay's amendment giving at least forty-two years, Lord 
Mahon saw that the majority would probably favor Mr. Ma- 
caulay's proposal, and so he took up Sir Robert Peel's suggestion 
that the period of copyright be for the further term of seven 
years, commencing at the time of the author's death. 

As a result of the discussion, the clause was amended as follows : 

The words seven years, as proposed by Sir Robert Peel and Lord 
Mahon, were substituted for the words twenty-five years ; and the words 
forty-two years were substituted for the words twenty-eight years. 

Thus the clause, as finally adopted by the House, purely on 
the merits of the debate and without political party feeling enter- 
ing at all into the voting, provided, that, 

I.) Copyright should last for the natural life of an author and for a 
further term of seven years commencing at the time of his death, and 

2.) Copyright should in no case last for a period of less than forty- 
two years after publication, 



INTRODUCTION 1 5 

After the third clause had been thus amended, several other 
sections of the bill were passed, whereupon the chairman of the 
committee reported progress on the bill. 

From the foregoing account it is apparent that again in 
speaking on copyright Macaulay won a conspicuous victory. 
To be sure, the House, sitting as a committee of the whole, 
made a slight change in his plan, in order to meet an argument 
advanced by Sir R. H. Inglis and then taken up by Sir Robert 
Peel and Lord Mahon, but in general it was Macaulay's con- 
structive plan which triumphed. 

It seems remarkable that Macaulay could in this way hold 
back the clock of legislation for many years. His plan remained 
up to 191 1 the copyright statute in England, though his plan 
was extended somewhat in the interval by judicial interpretation 
as specific cases for dispute arose. In 1 9 1 1 Parliament passed 
a bill which accepted for the period of copyright very nearly 
the length of time which Talfourd advocated in 1841 and more 
than the length of time proposed by Mahon in 1842 when 
Macaulay succeeded in checking the extension. The Copyright 
Act which Parliament passed December 16, 191 1, contained 
several radically new features. The first to be noted is that the 
term, or period, of copyright has been greatly extended. It is 
now the life of the author and a period of ffty years after his 
deaths subject to certain limitations. This, it will be recalled, is 
only ten years less than the period advocated by Mr. Sergeant 
Talfourd in 1841 (see page 9). Another new feature of this 
latest copyright law for the United Kingdom aims to meet 
objections that had been made to the lengthening of the copy- 
right period. Now an author who is the first owner of a copy- 
right may not, except by will, assign his right or grant an interest 
in it for a period extending more than twenty-five years from his 
death. This new copyright law changes a plan which Macaulay 
urged with such cogency as to keep it operative for nearly seventy 
years after his speech in the House of Commons in 1842. 



1 6 MACAULAY 



USEFUL BOOKS FOR REFERENCE 

1. The Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay, by G. Otto Trevelyan. 
Harper & Brothers, 1876. Two volumes in one. 

2. Macaulay, by J. Cotter Morison. English Men of Letters 
Series. Harper & Brothers, 1883. An excellent condensed biography 
of 183 pages. 

3. The Law of Copyright, by George Stuart Robertson. Claren- 
don Press, Oxford, 191 2. A treatise on the law of copyright as it 
became established in the United Kingdom by the Copyright Act of 
December 16, 191 1. 

4. The Question of Copyright, by George Haven Putnam. 
G. P. Putnam's Sons. This book includes a digest of the copyright 
laws of the world up to March, 1896. 

5. The Law of Copyright, by E. J. MacGillivray. E. P. Button 
& Co., 1902. A treatise on the law of copyright in the United King- 
dom and the Dominions of the Crown, and in the United States of 
America. This book contains information about international copy- 
right, what books are protected by copyright, the owner of the 
copyright in books, infringement of copyright in books, publishing 
and printing agreements, besides chapters on copyright in engravings, 
sculpture, paintings, photographs, etc. 

6. Playright and Copyright in All Countries, by William M. Colles 
and Harold Hardy. The Macmillan Company, London, 1906. A 
handy, popular compilation showing how to protect a play or a book 
throughout the world. 

7. Copyright Enactments, 1 783-1 900, compiled by Thorvald Sol- 
berg, Register of Copyrights, Washington. Government Printing 
Office, 1900. Those who wish condensed information regarding the 
history of copyright in the United States should write to Washing- 
ton, D.C., for this invaluable pamphlet of 83 pages. The original 
period recommended by Congress in 1783 for adoption by the 
several states was fourteen years, with a possible addition of another 
fourteen years ; but the first period was made twenty-eight years by 
an act of Congress in 1831, the second period remaining at four- 
teen years. 

8. Files of the London Tiines for 1841 and 1842. 



INTRODUCTION 17 

9. Parliamentary Debates, published by Thomas Curson Hansard. 
The volumes for 1841 and 1842 contain full reports of the debates 
in the House of Commons on copyright. 

10. Speeches by Thomas B. Macaulay, published by Hurst & Co., 
New York. Two volumes in one. A cheap and handy volume of 
much use to the student of Macaulay's oratory. 



THE FIRST SPEECH ON COPYRIGHT, 
FEBRUARY 5, 1841 

Though, Sir, it is in some sense agreeable to approach a sub- 
ject with which political animosities have nothing to do, I offer 
myself to your notice with some reluctance. It is painful to 
me to take a course which may possibly be misunderstood or 
5 misrepresented as unfriendly to the interests of literature and 
literary men. It is painful to me, I will add, to oppose my 
honorable and learned friend on a question which he has taken 
up from the purest motives, and which he regards with a parental 
interest. These feelings have hitherto kept me silent when the 

lo law of copyright has been under discussion. But as I am, on 
full consideration, satisfied that the measure before us will, if 
adopted, inflict grievous injury on the public, without conferring 
any compensating advantage on men of letters, I think it my 
duty to avow that opinion and to defend it. 

15 The first thing to be done. Sir, is to settle on what principles 
the question is to be argued. Are we free to legislate for the 
public good, or are we not ? Is this a question of expediency, or 
is it a question of right ? Many of those who have written and 
petitioned against the existing state of things treat the question 

20 as one of right. The law of nature, according to them, gives to 
every man a sacred and indefeasible property in his own ideas, in 
the fruits of his own reason and imagination. The legislature 
has indeed the power to take away this property, just as it has 
the power to pass an act of attainder for cutting off an innocent 

25 man's head without a trial. But, as such an act of attainder 
would be legal murder, so would an act invading the right of an 
author to his copy be, according to these gentlemen, legal robbery. 

18 



FIRST SPEECH ON COPYRIGHT 19 

Now, Sir, if this be so, let justice be done, cost what it may. 
I am not prepared, like my honorable and learned friend, to 
agree to a compromise between right and expediency, and to 
commit an injustice for the public convenience. But I must 
say, that his theory soars far beyond the reach of my faculties. 5 
It is not necessary to go, on the present occasion, into a meta- 
physical inquiry about the origin of the right of property ; and 
certainly nothing but the strongest necessity would lead me to 
discuss a subject so likely to be distasteful to the House. I 
agree, I own, with Paley in thinking that property is the creature ,10 
of the law, and that the law which creates property can be 
defended only on this ground, that it is a law beneficial to man- 
kind. But it is unnecessary to debate that point. For, even 
if I believed in a natural right of property, independent of utility 
and anterior to legislation, I should still deny that this right 15 
could survive the original proprietor. Few, I apprehend, even 
of those who have studied in the most mystical and sentimental 
schools of moral philosophy, will be disposed to maintain that 
there is a natural law of succession older and of higher authority 
than any human code. If there be, it is quite certain that we 20 
have abuses to reform much more serious than any connected 
with the question of copyright. For this natural law can be 
only one ; and the modes of succession in the Queen's dominions 
are twenty. To go no further than England, land generally 
descends to the eldest son. In Kent the sons share and share 25 
alike. In many districts the youngest takes the whole. For- 
merly a portion of a man's personal property was secured to his 
family; and it was only of the residue that he could dispose 
by will. Now he can dispose of the whole by will : but you 
limited his power, a few years ago, by enacting that the will 30 
should not be valid unless there were two witnesses. If a man 
dies intestate, his personal property generally goes according 
to the statute of distributions ; but there are local customs 
which modify that statute. Now which of all these systems is 



20 MACAULAY 

conformed to the eternal standard of right ? Is it primogeniture, 
or gavelkind, or borough English ? Are wills jure divino ? Are 
the two witnesses Jure divino ? Might not the pars rationabilis 
of our old law have a fair claim to be regarded as of celestial 
5 institution ? Was the statute of distributions enacted in Heaven 
long before it was adopted by Parliament ? Or is it to Custom 
of York, or to Custom of London, that this preeminence 
belongs ? Surely, Sir, even those who hold that there is a 
natural right of property must admit that rules prescribing the 

lo manner in which the effects of deceased persons shall be dis- 
tributed are purely arbitrary, and originate altogether in the 
will of the legislature. If so. Sir, there is no controversy between 
my honorable and learned friend and myself as to the prin- 
ciples on which this question is to be argued. For the existing 

15 law gives an author copyright during his natural life; nor do I 
propose to invade that privilege, which I should, on the contrary, 
be prepared to defend strenuously against any assailant. The 
only point in issue between us is, how long after an author's 
death the state shall recognize a copyright in his representatives 

20 and assigns ; and it can, I think, hardly be disputed by any 
rational man that this is a point which the legislature is free to 
determine in the way which may appear to be most conducive 
to the general good. 

We may now, therefore, I think, descend from these high 

25 regions, where we are in danger of being lost in the clouds, to 
firm ground and clear light. Let us look at this question like 
legislators, and after fairly balancing conveniences and incon- 
veniences, pronounce between the existing law of copyright, and 
the law now proposed to us. The question of copyright. Sir, 

30 like most questions of civil prudence, is neither black nor white, 
but gray. The system of copyright has great advantages and 
great disadvantages ; and it is our business to ascertain what 
these are, and then to make an arrangement under which 
the advantages may be as far as possible secured, and the 



FIRST SPEECH ON COPYRIGHT 21 

disadvantages as far as possible excluded. The charge which I 
bring against my honorable and learned friend's bill is this, 
that it leaves the advantages nearly what they are at present, 
and increases the disadvantages at least fourfold. 

The advantages arising from a system of copyright are obvi- 5 
ous. It is desirable that we should have a supply of good books ; 
we cannot have such a supply unless men of letters are liberally 
remunerated : and the least objectionable way of remunerating 
them is by means of copyright. You cannot depend for literary 
instruction and amusement on the leisure of men occupied in 10 
the pursuits of active life. Such men may occasionally produce 
compositions of great merit. But you must not look to such 
men for works which require deep meditation and long research. 
Works of that kind you can expect only from persons who make 
literature the business of their lives. Of these persons few will 15 
be found among the rich and the noble. The rich and the noble 
are not impelled to intellectual exertion by necessity. They 
may be impelled to intellectual exertion by the desire of dis- 
tinguishing themselves, or by the desire of benefiting the com- 
munity. But it is generally within these walls that they seek 20 
to signalize themselves and to serve their fellow-creatures. 
Both their ambition and their public spirit, in a country like this, 
naturally take a political turn. It is then on men whose pro- 
fession is literature, and whose private means are not ample, 
that you must rely for a supply of valuable books. Such men 25 
must be remunerated for their literary labor. And there are 
only two ways in which they can be remunerated. One of 
those ways is patronage ; the other is copyright. 

There have been times in which men of letters looked, not 
to the public, but to the government, or to a few great men, 30 
for the reward of their exertions. It was thus in the time of 
Maecenas and Pollio at Rome, of the Medici at Florence, of 
Louis the Fourteenth in France, of Lord Halifax and Lord 
Oxford in this country. Now, Sir, I well know that there are 



22 MAC AULA Y 

cases in which it is fit and graceful, nay, in which it is a sacred 
duty to reward the merits or to relieve the distresses of men of 
genius by the exercise of this species of liberality. But these 
cases are exceptions. I can conceive no system more fatal to 
5 the integrity and independence of literary men than one under 
which they should be taught to look for their daily bread to 
the favor of ministers and nobles. I can conceive no system 
more certain to turn those minds which are formed by nature 
to be the blessings and ornaments of our species into public 

lo scandals and pests. 

We have, then, only one resource left. We must betake our- 
selves to copyright, be the inconveniences of copyright what 
they may. Those inconveniences, in truth, are neither few nor 
small. Copyright is monopoly, and produces all the effects 

15 which the general voice of mankind attributes to monopoly. 
My honorable and learned friend talks very contemptuously of 
those who are led away by the theory that monopoly makes 
things dear. That monopoly makes things dear is certainly a 
theory, as all the great truths which have been established by 

20 the experience of all ages and nations, and which are taken for 
granted in all reasonings, may be said to be theories. It is a 
theory in the same sense in which it is a theory that day and 
night follow each other, that lead is heavier than water, that 
bread nourishes, that arsenic poisons, that alcohol intoxicates. 

25 If, as my honorable and learned friend seems to think, the 
whole world is in the wrong on this point, if the real effect of 
monopoly is to make articles good and cheap, why does he 
stop short in his career of change ? Why does he limit the 
operation of so salutary a principle to sixty years ? Why does 

30 he consent to anything short of a perpetuity ? He told us that 
in consenting to anything short of a perpetuity he was making 
a compromise between extreme right and expediency. But if 
his opinion about monopoly be correct, extreme right and ex- 
pediency would coincide. Or rather, why should we not restore 



FIRST SPEECH ON COPYRIGHT 23 

the monopoly of the East India trade to the East India Com- 
pany ? Why should we not revive all those old monopolies 
which, in Elizabeth's reign, galled our fathers so severely that, 
maddened by intolerable wrong, they opposed to their sovereign 
a resistance before which her haughty spirit quailed for the first 5 
and for the last time ? Was it the cheapness and excellence of 
commodities that then so violently stirred the indignation of the 
English people ? I believe. Sir, that I may safely take it for 
granted that the effect of monopoly generally is to make articles 
scarce, to make them dear, and to make them bad. And I ma;y 10 
with equal safety challenge my honorable friend to find out any 
distinction between copyright and other privileges of the same 
kind ; any reason why a monopoly of books should produce an 
effect directly the reverse of that which was produced by the 
East India Company's monopoly of tea, or by Lord Essex's 15 
monopoly of sweet wines. Thus, then, stands the case. It is 
good that authors should be remunerated ; and the least excep- 
tionable way of remunerating them is by a monopoly. Yet 
monopoly is an evil. For the sake of the good we must sub- 
mit to the evil ; but the evil ought not to last a day longer than 20 
is necessary for the purpose of securing the good. 

Now, I will not affirm that the existing law is perfect, that it 
exactly hits the point at which the monopoly ought to cease; 
but this I confidently say, that the existing law is very much 
nearer that point than the law proposed by my honorable and 25 
learned friend. For consider this ; the evil effects of the mo- 
nopoly are proportioned to the length of its duration. But 
the good effects for the sake of which we bear with the evil 
effects are by no means proportioned to the length of its dura- 
tion. A monopoly of sixty years produces twice as much evil 30 
as a monopoly of thirty years, and thrice as much evil as a 
monopoly of twenty years. But it is by no means the fact that 
a posthumous monopoly of sixty years gives to an author thrice 
as much pleasure and thrice as strong a motive as a posthumous 



24 MACAULAY 

monopoly of twenty years. On the contrary, the difference is 
so small as to be hardly perceptible. We all know how faintly 
we are affected by the prospect of very distant advantages, 
even when they are advantages which we may reasonably hope 
5 that we shall ourselves enjoy. But an advantage that is to be 
enjoyed more than half a century after we are dead, by some- 
body, we know not by whom, perhaps by somebody unborn, 
by somebody utterly unconnected with us, is really no motive 
at all to action. It is very probable that in the course of some 

lo generations land in the unexplored and unmapped heart of the 
Australasian continent will be very valuable. But there is none 
of us who would lay down five pounds for a whole province in 
the heart of the Australasian continent. We know, that neither 
we, nor anybody for whom we care, will ever receive a farthing 

15 of rent from such a province. And a man is very little moved 
by the thought that in the year 2000 or 2100, somebody who 
claims through him will employ more shepherds than Prince 
Esterhazy, and will have the finest house and gallery of pictures 
at Victoria or Sydney. Now, this is the sort of boon which my 

20 honorable and learned friend holds out to authors. Considered 
as a boon to them, it is a mere nullity ; but considered as an 
impost on the public, it is no nullity, but a very serious and 
pernicious reality. I will take an example. Dr. Johnson died 
fifty-six years ago. If the law were what my honorable and 

25 learned friend wishes to make it, somebody would now have 
the monopoly of Dr. Johnson's works. Who that somebody 
would be it is impossible to say ; but we may venture to guess. 
I guess, then, that it would have been some bookseller, who 
was the assign of another bookseller, who was the grandson of 

30 a third bookseller, who had bought the copyright from Black 
Frank, the doctor's- servant and residuary legatee, in 1785 or 
1786. Now, would the knowledge that this copyright would 
exist in 1841 have been a source of gratification to Johnson? 
Would it have stimulated his exertions ? Would it have once 



FIRST SPEECH ON COPYRIGHT 25 

drawn him out of his bed before noon ? Would it have once 
cheered him under a fit of the spleen ? Would it have induced 
him to give us one more allegory, one more life of a poet, one 
more imitation of Juvenal ? I firmly believe not. I firmly be- 
lieve that a hundred years ago, when he was writing our debates 5 
for the Gentleman^ s Magazine^ he would very much rather have 
had twopence to buy a plate of shin of beef at a cook's shop 
underground. Considered as a reward to him, the difference 
between a twenty years' and sixty years' term of posthumous 
copyright would have been nothing or next to nothing. But is 10 
the difference nothing to us ? I can buy Rasselas for sixpence ; 
I might have had to give five shillings for it. I can buy the 
Dictionary, the entire genuine Dictionary, for two guineas, per- 
haps for less ; I might have had to give five or six guineas for 
it. Do. I grudge this to a man like Dr. Johnson? Not at all. 15 
Show me that the prospect of this boon roused him to any 
vigorous effort, or sustained his spirits under depressing cir- 
cumstances, and I am quite willing to pay the price of such an 
object, heavy as that price is. But what I do complain of is 
that my circumstances are to be worse, and Johnson's none the 20 
better ; that I am to give five pounds for what to him was not 
worth a farthing. 

The principle of copyright is this. It is a tax on readers for 
the purpose of giving a bounty to writers. The tax is an ex- 
ceedingly bad one ; it is a tax on one of the most innocent 25 
and most salutary of human pleasures ; and never let us forget, 
that a tax on innocent pleasures is a premium on vicious 
pleasures. I admit, however, the necessity of giving a bounty 
to genius and learning. In order to give such a bounty, I 
willingly submit even to this severe and burdensome tax. Nay, 30 
I am ready to increase the tax, if it can be shown that by so 
doing I should proportionally increase the bounty. My com- 
plaint is, that my honorable and learned friend doubles, triples, 
quadruples, the tax, and makes scarcely any perceptible addition 



26 MACAULAY 

to the bounty. Why, Sir, what is the additional amount of 
taxation which would have been levied on the public for Dr. 
Johnson's works alone, if my honorable and learned friend's 
bill had been the law of the land ? I have not data sufficient 
5 to form an opinion. But I am confident that the taxation on 
his dictionary alone would have amounted to many thousands 
of pounds. In reckoning the whole additional sum which the 
holders of his copyrights would have taken out of the pockets 
of the public during the last half century at twenty thousand 

10 pounds, I feel satisfied that I very greatly underrate it. Now, I 
again say that I think it but fair that we should pay twenty 
thousand pounds in consideration of twenty thousand pounds' 
worth of pleasure and encouragement received by Dr. Johnson. 
But I think it very hard that we should pay twenty thousand 

15 pounds for what he would not have valued at five shillings. 

My honorable and learned friend dwells on the claims of the 
posterity of great writers. Undoubtedly, Sir, it would be very 
pleasing to see a descendant of Shakespeare living in opulence 
on the fruits of his great ancestor's genius. A house maintained 

20 in splendor by such a patrimony would be a more interesting 
and striking object than Blenheim is to us, or than Strathfield- 
saye will be to our children. But, unhappily, it is scarcely pos- 
sible that, under any system, such a thing can come to pass. 
My honorable and learned friend does not propose that copy- 

25 right shall descend to the eldest son, or 'shall be bound up by 
irrevocable entail. It is to be merely personal property. It is 
therefore highly improbable that it will descend during sixty 
years or half that term from parent to child. The chance is 
that more people than one will have an interest in it. They 

30 will in all probability sell it and divide the proceeds. The price 
which a bookseller will give for it will bear no proportion to the 
sum which he will afterwards draw from the public, if his specu- 
lation proves successful. He will give little, if anything, more 
for a term of sixty years than for a term of thirty or five and 



FIRST SPEECH ON COPYRIGHT 2/ 

twenty. The present value of a distant advantage is always 
small; but when there is great room to doubt whether a dis- 
tant advantage will be any advantage at all, the present value 
sinks to almost nothing. Such is the inconstancy of the public 
taste that no sensible man will venture to pronounce, with con- 5 
fidence, what the sale of any book published in our days will be 
in the years between 1890 and 1900. The whole fashion of 
thinking and writing has often undergone a change in a much 
shorter period than that to which my honorable and learned 
friend would extend posthumous copyright. What would have 10 
been considered the best literary property in the earlier part of 
Charles the Second's reign ? I imagine Cowley's Poems. Over- 
leap sixty years, and you are in the generation of which Pope 
asked, ^^ Who now reads Cowley ? " What works were ever ex- 
pected with more impatience by the public than those of Lord 15 
Bolingbroke, which appeared, I think, in 1754? In 18 14, no 
bookseller would have thanked you for the copyright of them 
all, if you had offered it to him for nothing. What would Pater- 
noster Row give now for the copyright of Hay ley's " Triumphs 
of Temper," so much admired within the memory of many 20 
people still living ? I say, therefore, that, from the very nature 
of literary property, it will almost always pass away from an 
author's family ; and I say, that the price given for it to the 
family will bear a very small proportion to the tax which the 
purchaser, if his speculation turns out well, will in the course of 25 
a long series of years levy on the public. 

If, Sir, I wished to find a strong and perfect illustration of the 
effects which I anticipate from long copyright, I should select, 
— my honorable and learned friend will be surprised, — I should 
select the case of Milton's granddaughter. As often as this bill 30 
has been under discussion, the fate of Milton's granddaughter 
has been brought forward by the advocates of monopoly. My 
honorable and learned friend has repeatedly told the story with ' 
great eloquence and effect. He has dilated on the sufferings, 



28 MACAULAY 

on the abject poverty, of this ill-fated woman, the last of an 
illustrious race. He tells us that, in the extremity of her dis- 
tress, Garrick gave her a benefit performance of ^^ Comus," that 
Johnson wrote a prologue, and that the public contributed some 
5 hundreds of pounds. Was it fit, he asks, that she should receive, 
in this eleemosynary form, a small portion of what was in truth 
a debt? Why, he asks, instead of obtaining a pittance from 
charity, did she not live in comfort and luxury on the proceeds 
of the sale of her ancestor's works ? But, Sir, will my honorable 

10 and learned friend tell me that this event, which he has so often 
and so pathetically described, was caused by the shortness of 
the term of copyright ? Why, at that time, the duration of copy- 
right was longer than even he, at present, proposes to make it. 
The monopoly lasted, not sixty years, but forever. At the 

15 time at which Milton's granddaughter asked charity, Milton's 
works were the exclusive property of a bookseller. Within a 
few months of the day on which the benefit was given at Gar- 
rick's theater, the holder of the-copyright of ^^ Paradise Lost," — 
I think it was Tonson, — applied to the Court of Chancery for 

20 an injunction against a bookseller who had published a cheap 
edition of the great epic poem, and obtained the injunction. 
The representation of " Comus " was, if I remember rightly, in 
1750; the injunction in 1752. Here, then, is a perfect illus- 
tration of the effect of long copyright. Milton's works are the 

25 property of a single publisher. Everybody who wants them 
must buy them at Tonson's shop, and at Tonson's price. Who- 
ever attempts to undersell Tonson is harassed with legal pro- 
ceedings. Thousands who would gladly possess a copy of 
" Paradise Lost " must forego that great enjoyment. And what, 

30 in the meantime, is the situation of the only person for whom 
we can suppose that the author, protected at such a cost to 
the public, was at all interested ? She is reduced to utter desti- 
tution. Milton's works are under a monopoly. Milton's grand- 
daughter is starving. The reader is pillaged ; but the writer's 



FIRST SPEECH ON COPYRIGHT 29 

family is not enriched. Society is taxed doubly. It has to give 
an exorbitant price for the poems ; and it has at the same time 
to give alms to the only surviving descendant of the poet. 

But this is not all. I think it right, Sir, to call the attention 
of the House to an evil, v^hich is perhaps more to be apprehended 5 
when an author's copyright remains in the hands of his family, 
than when it is transferred to booksellers. I seriously fear that, 
if such a measure as this should be adopted, many valuable 
works will be either totally suppressed or grievously mutilated. 
I can prove that this danger is not chimerical ; and I am quite 10 
certain that, if the danger be real, the safeguards which my 
honorable and learned friend has devised are altogether nuga- 
tory. That the danger is not chimerical may easily be shown. 
Most of us, I am sure, have known persons who, very erroneously 
as I think, but from the best motives, would not choose to re- 15 
print Fielding's novels or Gibbon's '^ History of the Decline and 
Fall of the ,Roman Empire." Some gentlemen may perhaps be 
of opinion that it would be as well if ^^ Tom Jones " and Gibbon's 
^* History " were never reprinted. I will not, then, dwell on 
these or similar cases. I will take cases respecting which it is not 20 
likely that there will be any difference of opinion here ; cases, too, 
in which the danger of which I now speak is not matter of 
supposition, but matter of fact. Take Richardson's novels. What- 
ever I may, on the present occasion, think of my honorable and 
learned friend's judgment as a legislator, I must always respect 25 
his judgment as a critic. He will, I am sure, say that Richard- 
son's novels are among the most valuable, among the most 
original, works in our language. No writings have done more 
to raise the fame of English genius in foreign countries. No 
writings are more deeply pathetic. No writings, those of Shake- 30 
speare excepted, show more profound knowledge of the human 
heart. As to their moral tendency, I can cite the most respectable 
testimony. Dr. Johnson describes Richardson as one who had 
taught the passions to move at the command of virtue. My dear 



30 MACAULAY 

and honored friend, Mr. Wilberforce, in his celebrated religious 
treatise, when speaking of the unchristian tendency of the fash- 
ionable novels of the eighteenth century, distinctly excepts 
Richardson from the censure. Another excellent person, whom 
5 I can never mention without respect and kindness, Mrs. Hannah 
More, often declared in conversation, and has declared in one 
of her published poems, that she first learned from the writings 
of Richardson those principles of piety by which her life was 
guided. I may safely say that books celebrated as works of art 

lo through the whole civilized world, and praised for their moral 
tendency by Dr. Johnson, by Mr. Wilberforce, by Mrs. Hannah 
More, ought not to be suppressed. Sir, it is my firm belief, that 
if the law had been what my honorable and learned friend pro- 
poses to make it, they would have been suppressed. I remember 

15 Richardson's grandson well; he was a clergyman in the city 
of London ; he was a most upright and excellent man ; but 
he had conceived a strong prejudice against works of fiction. He 
thought all novel-reading not only frivolous but sinful. He said, 
— this I state on the authority of one of his clerical brethren 

20 who is now a bishop, — he said that he had never thought it 
right to read one of his grandfather's books. Suppose, Sir, that 
the law had been what my honorable and learned friend would 
make it. Suppose that the copyright of Richardson's novels 
had descended, as might well have been the case, to this gen- 

25 tleman. I firmly believe that he would have thought it sinful to 
give them a wide circulation. I firmly believe that he would not 
for a hundred thousand pounds have deliberately done what 
he thought sinful. He would not have reprinted them. And 
what protection does my honorable and learned friend give to 

30 the public in such a case ? Why, Sir, what he proposes is this : 
if a book is not reprinted during five years, any person who 
wishes to reprint it may give notice in the London Gazette : the 
advertisement must be repeated three times : a year must elapse ; 
and then, if the proprietor of the copyright does not put forth 



FIRST SPEECH ON COPYRIGHT 3 1 

a new edition, he loses his exclusive privilege. Now, what 
protection is this to the public ? What is a new edition ? Does 
the law define the number of copies that make an edition? 
Does it limit the price of a copy ? Are twelve copies on large 
paper, charged at thirty guineas each, an edition ? It has been 5 
usual, when monopolies have been granted, to prescribe numbers 
and to limit prices. But I do not find that my honorable and 
learned friend proposes to do so in the present case. And, with- 
out some such provision, the security which he offers is mani- 
festly illusory. It is my conviction that, under such a system 10 
as that which he recommends to us, a copy of ^^ Clarissa " would 
have been as rare as an Aldus or a Caxton. 

I will give another instance. One of the most instructive, 
interesting, and delightful books in our language is BoswelFs 
^^ Life of Johnson.'' Now it is well known that BoswelFs eldest 15 
son considered this book, considered the whole relation of 
Boswell CO Johnson, as a blot in the escutcheon of the family. 
He thought, not perhaps altogether without reason, that his 
father had exhibited himself in a ludicrous and degrading light. 
And thus he became so sore and irritable that at last he could 20 
not bear to hear the ^' Life of Johnson '' mentioned. Suppose 
that the law had been what my honorable and learned friend 
wishes to make it. Suppose that the copyright of BoswelFs 
" Life of Johnson " had belonged, as it well might, during sixty 
years, to Boswell's eldest son. What would have been the 25 
consequence ? An unadulterated copy of the finest biographical 
work in the world would have been as scarce as the first edition 
of Camden's ^^ Britannia." 

These are strong cases. I have shown you that, if the law 
had been what you are now going to make it, the finest prose 30 
work of fiction in the language, the finest biographical work in 
the language, would very probably have been suppressed. But 
I have stated my case weakly. The books which I have men- 
tioned are singularly inoffensive books, books not touching on 



32 MACAULAY 

any of those questions which drive even wise men beyond the 
bounds of wisdom. There are books of a very different kind, 
books which are the rallying points of great political and religious 
parties. What is likely to happen if the copyright of one of 
5 these books should by descent or transfer come into the posses- 
sion of some hostile zealot ? I will take a single instance. It is 
only fifty years since John Wesley died ; and all his works, if 
the law had been what my honorable and learned friend wishes 
to make it, would now have been the property of some person 

lo or other. The sect founded by Wesley is the most numerous, 
the wealthiest, the most powerful, the most zealous of sects. In 
every parliamentary election it is a matter of the greatest im- 
portance to obtain the support of the Wesley an Methodists. 
Their numerical strength is reckoned by hundreds of thousands. 

15 They hold the memory of their founder in the greatest rever- 
ence ; and not without reason, for he was unquestionably a great 
and a good man. To his authority they constantly appeal. His 
works are in their eyes of the highest value. His doctrinal 
writings they regard as containing the best system of theology 

20 ever deduced from Scripture. His journals, interesting even to 
the common reader, are peculiarly interesting to the Methodist : 
for they contain the whole history of that singular polity which, 
weak and despised in its beginning, is now, after the lapse of a 
century, so strong, so flourishing, and so formidable. The hymns 

25 to which he gave his imprimatur are a most important part of 
the public worship of his followers. Now, suppose that the copy- 
right of these works should belong to some person who holds 
the memory of Wesley and the doctrines and discipline of the 
Methodists in abhorrence. There are many such persons. The 

30 Ecclesiastical Courts are at this very time sitting on the case of 
a clergyman of the Established Church who refused Christian 
burial to a child baptized by a Methodist preacher. I took up 
the other day a work which is considered as among the most 
respectable organs of a large and growing party in the Church 



FIRST SPEECH ON COPYRIGHT 



33 



of England, and there I saw John Wesley designated as a for- 
sworn priest. Suppose that the works of Wesley were sup- 
pressed. Why, Sir, such a grievance would be enough to shake 
the foundations of government. Let gentlemen who are attached 
to the Church reflect for a moment what their feelings would be 5 
if the Book of Common Prayer were not to be reprinted for 
thirty or forty years, if the price of a Book of Common Prayer 
were run up to five or ten guineas. And then let them deter- 
mine whether they will pass a law under which it is possible, 
under which it is probable, that so intolerable a wrong may be 10 
done to some sect consisting perhaps of half a million of persons. 
I am so sensible. Sir, of the kindness with which the House 
has listened to me, that I will not detain you longer. I will only 
say this, that if the measure before us should pass, and should 
produce one tenth part of the evil which it is calculated to 15 
produce, and which I fully expect it to produce, there will soon 
be a remedy, though of a very objectionable kind. Just as the 
absurd Acts which prohibited the sale of game were virtually 
repealed by the poacher, just as many absurd revenue Acts 
have been virtually repealed by the smuggler, so will this law 20 
be virtually repealed by piratical booksellers. At present the 
holder of copyright has the public feeling on his side. Those 
who invade copyright are regarded as knaves who take the 
bread out of the mouths of deserving men. Everybody is well 
pleased to see them restrained by the law, and compelled to 25 
refund their ill-gotten gains. No tradesman of good repute 
will have anything to do with such disgraceful transactions. 
Pass this law : and that feeling is at an end. Men very different 
from the present race of piratical booksellers will soon infringe 
this intolerable monopoly. Great masses of capital will be 30 
constantly employed in the violation of the law. Every art 
will be employed to evade legal pursuit ; and the whole nation 
will be in the plot. On which side indeed should the public 
sympathy be when the question is whether some book as popular 



34 MACAULAY 

as ** Robinson Crusoe •" or the ^^ Pilgrim's Progress " shall be 
in every cottage, or whether it shall be confined to the libraries of 
the rich for the advantage of the great-grandson of a bookseller 
who, a hundred years before, drove a hard bargain for the copy- 
5 right with the author when in great distress ? Remember too 
that, when once it ceases to be considered as wrong and dis- 
creditable to invade literary property, no person can say where 
the invasion will stop. The public seldom makes nice distinc- 
tions. The wholesome copyright which now exists will share 

10 in the disgrace and danger of the new copyright which you are 
about to create. And you will find that, in attempting to im- 
pose unreasonable restraints on the reprinting of the works of 
the dead, you have, to a great extent, annulled those restraints 
which now prevent men from pillaging and defrauding the living. 

15 If I saw. Sir, any probability that this bill could be so amended 
in the committee that my objections might be removed, I would 
not divide the House in this stage. But I am so fully convinced 
that no alteration which would not seem insupportable to my 
honorable and learned friend could render his measure sup- 

20 portable to me, that I must move, though with regret, that this 
bill be read a second time this day six months. 



THE SECOND SPEECH ON COPYRIGHT, 
APRIL 6, 1842 

Mr. Greene, — I have been amused and gratified by the 
remarks which my noble friend has made on the arguments by 
which I prevailed on the last House of Commons to reject the 
bill introduced by a very able and accomplished man, Mr. Ser- 
geant Talfourd. My noble friend has done me a high and rare 5 
honor. For this is, I believe, the first occasion on which a speech 
made in one Parliament has been answered in another. I should 
not find it difficult to vindicate the soundness of the reasons 
which I formerly urged, to set them in a clearer light, and to 
fortify them by additional facts. But it seems to me that we had 10 
better discuss the bill which is now on our table than the bill 
which was there fourteen months ago. Glad I am to find that 
there is a very wide difference between the two bills, and that 
my noble friend, though he has tried to refute my arguments, 
has acted as if he had been convinced by them. I objected to 15 
the term of sixty years as far too long. My noble friend has cut 
that term down to twenty-five years. I warned the House that, 
under the provisions of Mr. Sergeant Talfourd's bill, valuable 
works might not improbably be suppressed by the representa- 
tives of authors. My noble friend has prepared a clause which, 20 
as he thinks, will guard against that danger. I will not there- 
fore waste the time of the committee by debating points which 
he has conceded, but will proceed at once to the proper business 
of this evening. 

Sir, I have no objection to the principle of my noble friend's 25 
bill. Indeed, I had no objection to the principle of the bill of 
last year. I have long thought that the term of copyright ought 

35 



36 MACAULAY 

to be extended. When Mr. Sergeant Talfourd moved for leave 
to bring in his bill, I did not oppose the motion. Indeed I 
meant to vote for the second reading, and to reserve what I had 
to say for the committee. But the learned Sergeant left me no 
5 choice. He in strong language begged that nobody who was 
disposed to reduce the term of sixty years would divide with 
him. ^' Do not," he said, ^^ give me your support if all that you 
mean to grant to men of letters is a miserable addition of four- 
teen or fifteen years to the present term. I do not wish for such 

10 support. I despise it." Not wishing to obtrude on the learned 
Sergeant a support which he despised, I had no course left but 
to take the sense of the House on the second reading. The 
circumstances are now different. My noble friend's bill is not at 
present a good bill ; but it may be improved into a very good 

1 5 bill ; nor will he, I am persuaded, withdraw it, if it should be so 
improved. He and I have the same object in view; but we 
differ as to the best mode of attaining that object. We are 
equally desirous to extend the protection now enjoyed by writers. 
In what way it may be extended with most benefit to them and 

20 with least inconvenience to the public is the question. 

The present state of the law is this. The author of a work 
has a certain copyright in that work for a term of twenty-eight 
years. If he should live more than twenty-eight years after the 
publication of the work, he retains the copyright to the end of 

2^ his life. 

My noble friend does not propose to make any addition to the 
term of twenty-eight years. But he proposes that the copyright 
shall last twenty-five years after the author's death. Thus my 
noble friend makes no addition to that term which is certain, but 

30 makes a very large addition to that term which is uncertain. 

My plan is different. I would make no addition to the uncer- 
tain term ; but I would make a large addition to the certain 
term. I propose to add fourteen years to the twenty-eight years 
which the law now allows to an author. His copyright will in 



SECOND SPEECH ON COPYRIGHT 37 

this way last till his death, or till the expiration of forty-two 
years, whichever shall first happen. And I think that I shall be 
able to prove to the satisfaction of the committee that my plan 
will be more beneficial to literature and to literary men than the 
plan of my noble friend. 5 

It must surely. Sir, be admitted that the protection which we 
give to books ought to be distributed as evenly as possible, that 
every book should have a fair share of that protection, and no 
book more than a fair share. It would evidently be absurd to 
put tickets into a wheel, with different numbers marked upon 10 
them, and to make writers draw, one a term of twenty-eight 
years, another a term of fifty, another a term of ninety. And 
yet this sort of lottery is what my noble friend proposes to 
establish. I know that we cannot altogether exclude chance. 
You have two terms of copyright, one certain, the other uncer- 1 5 
tain ; and we cannot, I admit, get rid of the uncertain term. It 
is proper, no doubt, that an author's copyright should last during 
his life. But, Sir, though we cannot altogether exclude chance, 
we can very much diminish the share which chance must have 
in distributing the recompense which we wish to give to genius 20 
and learning. By every addition which we make to the certain 
term we diminish the influence of chance ; by every addition 
which we make to the uncertain term we increase the influence 
of chance. I shall make myself best understood by putting 
cases. Take two eminent female writers, who died within our 25 
own memory, Madame D'Arblay and Miss Austen. As the law 
now stands. Miss Austen's charming novels would have only 
twenty-eight to thirty-three years of copyright. For that extraor- 
dinary woman died young: she died before her genius was 
fully appreciated by the world. Madame D'Arblay outlived the 30 
whole generation to which she belonged. The copyright of her 
celebrated novel, ^' Evelina," lasted under the present law sixty- 
two years. Surely this inequality is sufficiently great, sixty- 
two years of copyright for " Evelina," only twenty-eight for 



38 MACAULAY 

'^ Persuasion/' But to my noble friend this inequality seems not 
great enough. He proposes to add twenty-five years to Madame 
D'Arblay's term, and not a single day to Miss Austen's term. 
He would give to " Persuasion " a copyright of only twenty-eight 
5 years, as at present, and to '' Evelina '' a copyright more than 
three times as long, a copyright of eighty-seven years. Now, is 
this reasonable? See, on the other hand, the operation of my 
plan. I make no addition at all to Madame D'Arblay's term of 
sixty-two years, which is, in my opinion, quite long enough ; but 

10 I extend Miss Austen's term to forty-two years, which is, in my 
opinion, not too much. You see, Sir, that at present chance has 
too much sway in this matter; that at present the protection 
which the state gives to letters is very unequally given. You see 
that if my noble friend's plan be adopted, more will be left to 

15 chance than under the present system, and you will have such 
inequalities as are unknown under the present system. You see 
also that, under the system which I recommend, w^e shall have, 
not perfect certainty, not perfect equality, but much less uncer- 
tainty and inequality than at present. 

20 But this is not all. My noble friend's plan is not merely to 
institute a lottery in which some writers will draw prizes and 
some will draw blanks. It is much worse than this. His lottery 
is so contrived that in the vast majority of cases the blanks will 
fall to the best books, and the prizes to books of inferior merit. 

25 Take Shakespeare. My noble friend gives a longer protection 
than I should give to '' Love's Labour 's Lost " and '' Pericles, 
Prince of Tyre," but he gives a sht)rter protection than I should 
give to " Othello " and " Macbeth." 

Take Milton. Milton died in 1674. The copyrights of Mil- 

30 ton's great works would according to my noble friend's plan 

expire in 1699. "Comus" appeared in 1634, the ''Paradise 

Lost" in 1668. To '' Comus," then, my noble friend would 

give sixty-five years of copyright, and to the '' Paradise Lost " 

* only thirty-one years. Is that reasonable .'* " Comus" is a noble 



I 



SECOND SPEECH ON COPYRIGHT 39 

poem : but who would rank -it with the '^ Paradise Lost " ? My 
plan would give forty-two years both to the ^' Paradise Lost " 
and to '' Comus." 

Let us pass from Milton to Dryden. My noble friend would 
give sixty years of copyright to Dryden's worst works ; to the 5 
encomiastic verses on Oliver Cromwell, to the " Wild Gallant," 
to the ^^ Rival Ladies/' to other wretched pieces as bad as 
anything written by Flecknoe or Settle : but for '' Theodore 
and Honoria," for '' Sigismunda," for '^ Cymon," for " Pala- 
mon and Arcite," for ^^ Alexander's Feast," my noble friend 10 
thinks a copyright of twenty-eight years sufficient. Of all 
Pope's works, that to which my noble friend would give the 
largest measure of protection is the volume of ^^ Pastorals," 
remarkable only as the production of a boy. Johnson's first 
work was a translation of a book of travels in Abyssinia, 15 
published in 1735. It was so poorly executed that in his 
later years he did not like to hear it mentioned. Boswell once 
picked up a copy of it, and told his friend that he had done 
so. " Do not talk about it," said Johnson ; '' it is a thing to 
be forgotten." To this performance my noble friend would 20 
give protection during the enormous term of seventy-five years. 
To the " Lives of the Poets " he would give protection during 
about thirty years. Well ; take Henry Fielding ; it matters not 
whom I take, but take Fielding. His early works are read only 
by the curious, and would not be read even by the curious, 25 
but for the fame which he acquired in the latter part of his 
life by works of a very different kind. What is the value of the 
" Temple Beau," of the '' Intriguing Chambermaid," of half a 
dozen other plays of which few gentlemen have even heard the 
names } Yet to these worthless pieces my noble friend would 30 
give a term of copyright longer by more than twenty years than 
that which he would give to ^* Tom Jones " and " Amelia." 

Go on to Burke. His little tract, entitled ^^ The Vindication 
of Natural Society," is certainly not without merit; but it would 



40 MACAULAY 

not be remembered in our days if it did not bear the name of 
Burke. To this tract my noble friend would give a copyright 
of near seventy years. But to the great work on the French 
Revolution, to the '' Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs," 
5 to the letters on the Regicide Peace, he would give a copy- 
right of thirty years or little more. 

And, Sir, observe that I am not selecting here and there ex- 
traordinary instances in order to make up the semblance of a 
case. I am taking the greatest names of our literature in chron- 
ic ological order. Go to other nations ; go to remote ages ; you 
will still find the general rule the same. There was no copy- 
right at Athens or Rome ; but the history of the Greek and 
Latin literature illustrates my argument quite as well as if copy- 
right had existed in ancient times. Of all the plays of Sopho- 
15 cles, the one to which the plan of my noble friend would have 
given the most scanty recompense would have been that won- 
derful masterpiece, the ^^ QEdipus at Colonos." Who would men- 
tion in the same breath, or hardly on the same day, the Speech 
of Demosthenes against his Guardians, and the Speech for the 
20 Crown? My noble friend, indeed, would not class them to- 
gether. For to the Speech against the Guardians he would 
give a copyright of near seventy years ; and to the incom- 
parable Speech for the Crown a copyright of less than half that 
length. Go to Rome. My noble friend would give more than 
25 twice as long a term to Cicero's juvenile declamation in defense 
of Roscius Amerinus as to the Second Philippic. Go to France ; 
my noble friend would give a far longer term to Racine's '' Freres 
Ennemis " than to '' Athalie," and to Moliere's " Etourdi " than to 
'' Tartuffe." Go to Spain. My noble friend would give a longer 
30 term to forgotten works of Cervantes, works which nobody now 
reads, than to '' Don Quixote." Go to Germany. According to 
my noble friend's plan, of all the works of Schiller the " Rob- 
bers " would be the most favored : of all the works of Goethe, 
the '' Sorrows of Werther " would be the most favored. 



SECOND SPEECH ON COPYRIGHT 41 

I thank the committee for listening so kindly to this long 
enumeration. Gentlemen will perceive, I am sure, that it is not 
from pedantry that I mention the names of so many books and 
authors. But, just as in our debates on civil affairs we con- 
stantly draw illustrations from civil history, we must in a debate 5 
about literary property draw our illustrations from literary his- 
tory. Now, Sir, I have, I think, shown from literary history 
that the effect of my noble friend's plan would be to give to 
crude and imperfect works, to third-rate and fourth-rate works, 
a great advantage over the highest productions of genius. It is 10 
impossible to account for the facts which I have laid before 
you by attributing them to mere accident. Their number is too 
great, their character too uniform. We must seek for some 
other explanation ; and we shall easily find one. 

It is the law of our nature that the mind shall attain its full 15 
power by slow degrees ; and this is especially true of the most 
vigorous minds. Young men, no doubt, have often produced 
works of great merit ; but it would be impossible to name any 
writer of the first order whose juvenile performances were his 
best. That all the most valuable books of history, of philology, 20 
of physical and metaphysical science, of divinity, of political 
economy, have been produced by men of mature years will 
hardly be disputed. 

The case may not be quite so clear as respects works of the 
imagination. And yet I know no work of the imagination of the 25 
very highest class that was ever in any age or country produced 
by a man under thirty-five. Whatever powers a youth may 
have received from nature, it is impossible that his taste and 
judgment can be ripe, that his mind can be richly stored with 
images, that he can have observed the vicissitudes of life, that 30 
he can have studied the nicer shades of character. How, as 
Marmontel very sensibly said, is a person to paint portraits who 
has never seen faces ? On the whole, I believe that I may with- 
out fear of contradiction affirm this, that of the good books 



42 MACAULAY 

now extant in the world more than nineteen-twentieths were 
published after the writers had attained the age of forty. If 
this be so, it is evident that the plan of my noble friend is 
framed on a vicious principle. For, while he gives to juvenile 
5 productions a very much larger protection than they now enjoy, 
he does comparatively little for the works of men in the full 
maturity of their powers, and absolutely nothing for any work 
which is published during the last three years of the life of the 
writer. For by the existing law the copyright of such a work lasts 

lo twenty-eight years from the publication, and my noble friend gives 
only twenty-five years to be reckoned from the writer's death. 

What I recommend is that the certain term reckoned from 
the date of publication shall be forty-two years instead of 
twenty-eight years. In this arrangement there is no uncer- 

15 tainty, no inequality. The advantage which I propose to give 
will be the same to every book. No work will have so long a 
copyright as my noble friend gives to some books, or so short 
a copyright as he gives to others. No copyright will last ninety 
years. No copyright will end in twenty-eight years. To every 

20 book published in the course of the last seventeen years of a 
writer's life I give a longer term of copyright than my noble 
friend gives ; and I am confident that no person versed in lit- 
erary history will deny this, — that in general the most valuable 
works of an author are published in the course of the last 

25 seventeen years of his life. I will rapidly enumerate a few, and 
but a few, of the great works of English writers to which my 
plan is more favorable than my noble friend's plan. To ^' Lear," 
to " Macbeth," to '' Othello," to the '' Fairy Queen," to the 
'' Paradise Lost," to Bacon's '' Novum Organum " and " De 

30 Augmentis," to Locke's ^^ Essay on the Human Understand- 
ing," to Clarendon's History, to Hume's History, to Gibbon's 
History, to Smith's '' Wealth of Nations," to Addison's Spectators, 
to almost all the great works of Burke, to ^^ Clarissa," and '^ Sir 
Charles Grandison," to "Joseph Andrews," '' Tom Jones," and 



SECOND SPEECH ON COPYRIGHT 43 

'* Amelia," and, with the single exception of '' Waverley," to 
all the novels of Sir Walter Scott, I give a longer term of copy- 
right than my noble friend gives. Can he match that list ? Does 
not that list contain what England has produced greatest in 
many various ways, poetry, philosophy, history, eloquence, wit, 5 
skillful portraiture of life and manners? 

I confidently, therefore, call on the committee to take my 
plan in preference to the plan of my noble friend. I have 
shown that the protection which he proposes to give is unequal, 
and unequal in the worst way. I have shown that his plan is 10 
to give protection to books in inverse proportion to their merit. 
I shall move when we come to the third clause of the bill to 
omit the words ^' twenty-five years," and in a subsequent part 
of the same clause I shall move to substitute for the words 
'' twenty-eight years " the words " forty-two years." I earnestly 15 
hope that the committee will adopt these amendments ; and 
I feel the firmest conviction that my noble friend's bill, so 
amended, will confer a great boon on men of letters with the 
smallest possible inconvenience to the public. 



COMMENTS, TOPICS, AND QUESTIONS ON 
MACAULAY'S COPYRIGHT SPEECHES 

1. With the following questions as guide, criticize Macaulay's in- 
troduction to each of his speeches on copyright : {a) Does Macaulay's 
introduction explain the origin and history of the proposition which 
he is debating? {b) Does it sift out the admitted matter.^ {c) Does it 
narrow the subject to certain main points.^ {d) Does it conform in 
any respects with what you have been taught to be the nature of an 
introduction to an argument? 

2. In studying Cicero's orations you may have been taught some- 
thing regarding the names of the usual parts of an oration. What 
are these names, and which of the usual parts does Macaulay show 
in his speeches on copyright? 



44 MACAULAY 

3. (a) What were the propositions which Macaulay's opponents 
made, what were their arguments in support of their assertions, and 
what were Macaulay's propositions? {b) By what arguments did 
Macaulay prove his principal assertions, or propositions? [c) What 
refutation did Macaulay make use of in his speeches? {d) Mention 
five notable orations by contemporaries of Macaulay, five by speakers 
of earlier times, and five by living orators. 

4. A newspaper man who sat in the reporters' gallery of the House 
of Commons and there took down the speeches says that Macaulay 
used to plunge at once into the heart of a matter and continue his 
loud resounding pace from beginning to end, without halt or pause ; 
he says that Macaulay was the terror of the reporters because of his 
vehemence and his display of names, dates, and titles. How do his 
copyright speeches illustrate these characteristics ? 

5. Sir Robert Peel, the prime minister, walked across the floor of 
the House after Macaulay's speech of 1842 and assured Macaulay 
that the last twenty minutes had radically altered his own views on 
the law of copyright, {a) Which part of Macaulay's speech do you 
think probably produced this effect ? {b) What effect has the speech 
had in forming your own views on the law of copyright ? 

6. Find illustrations of the truth of the following assertion: 
" Macaulay had the faculty, possessed by every great orator, of com- 
pressing a great deal into a short space." 

7. In commenting on the debate which resulted in the acceptance 
of Macaulay's fundamental proposition regarding the period of copy- 
right, an editorial writer in the London Times took occasion to discuss 
why there should be copyright and what its nature should be; the 
writer said that the object of copyright should be to secure to the 
public the freest possible access to the best possible works upon 
the best possible terms, and thought that the new bill would accom- 
plish this object. What does your study of the subject lead you to 
consider to be the principal objects or aims of copyright law? 

8. In one hundred words each summarize Macaulay's two copy- 
right speeches. Pay due regard to proportion. 

9. What have Macaulay's speeches taught you of the art of using 
words, forming sentences, constructing paragraphs, and building an 
argument ? 



COMMENTS, TOPICS, AND QUESTIONS 45 

10. Where did Macaulay go to college ? What good did college do 
him ? What did he do after college to earn his living ? What useful 
services did he render to the world in return for the maQy advantages 
which he enjoyed? 

11. The favorite niece of Lord Macaulay, Mrs. Fell, died February 
13, 191 3, in a hospital in Manchester. If the present copyright law 
had been in operation at the time of Macaulay 's death, how might 
Mrs. Fell possibly have benefited by the operation of the law ? 

12. It has been said that Macaulay could read half-a-dozen books 
in his cab on the way to the House of Commons. Theodore Roose- 
velt is said to have the same faculty of lighting at once in a book on 
anything in it that is useful for his purposes. What do you think of 
this method of reading ? 

13. What is the purpose of oratory ? 

14. A man who sat in the House for thirty-eight years says that 
the only sort of debate worth a farthing is that which gives informa- 
tion to the House or to the committee — the careful, deliberate debate, 
supplying food for thought because it is information. How does this 
opinion agree or disagree with your own idea of the best kind of 
parliamentary speech ? Test Macaulay's speeches by this standard. 

15. What has Macaulay taught you regarding British authors? 

16. Find the substance of one of the following speeches by Ma- 
caulay : On the Bill to Repeal the Civil Disabilities affecting British- 
born Subjects professing the Jewish Religion, On the Motion that 
leave be given to bring in a Bill to Amend the Representation of the 
People of England and Wales, Slavery in the Colonies, The Treaty 
of Washington, The Sugar Duties, On the Occasion of Macaulay's 
Inauguration as Lord Rector of Glasgow University (1849), Address 
in Edinburgh on His Reelection to Parliament (1852). 

17. Prepare to make a speech for or against the proposition that 
the duration of copyright should be for sixty years from the death 
of the author or that the duration should be for twenty-five years from 
the death of the author. 

18. Should the duration of copyright be longer than the duration 
of patents ? Give reasons for your answer. 

19. Comment upon or explain the following : primogenitu7'e^ gavel- 
kind^ borough English^ Mcecoias^ Pollio^ the Medici^ Paternoster 



46 MACAULAY 

Row^ Caxton^ the greatest naines of our literature in chronological 
order ^ Blenhei^n^ Ca7nde?i, 

20. When Macaulay says " Sir," in the first copyright speech, he 
is addressing the speaker of the House of Commons, Charles Shaw 
Lefevre, who presided over the sessions of the House, except when 
the House met as a committee of the whole, from 1839 to 1857, 
when he was raised to the peerage with the title Viscount Eversley. 
As speaker, his manner was dignified and impartial. Who presided 
over the session of the House when Macaulay made his second 
speech on copyright? 

21. What is the present law in the United States regarding the 
duration of copyright 1 

22. Macaulay 's personal manner as a speaker has been described 
as follows : His voice was monotonous, pitched in alto, shrill, pouring 
forth words with inconceivable velocity — a voice well adapted to give 
utterance with precision to the conclusions of the intellect, but in no 
way naturally formed to express feeling or passion. His face was 
literally instinct with expression : the eye, above all, full of deep 
thought and meaning. In stature, he was short and stout. How does 
this verbal description agree with the idea that you gain of Macaulay 
by looking at his picture 1 

23. Imagine Talfourd, Mahon, and Macaulay talking over the 
subject of the proper duration of copyright. What do you think 
each would say? 



LINCOLN'S ADDRESS AT COOPER 
INSTITUTE 



INTRODUCTION TO LINCOLN'S ADDRESS 
AT COOPER INSTITUTE 

ABRAHAM LINCOLN (1809-1865) 

A complete collection of lives of poor men who became 
famous would have to include an account of the life of 
Abraham Lincoln, for he was one of the poorest and became 
one of the most famous. A short sketch of Lincoln's life may 
well begin with his own resume, to be supplemented by addi- 
tional details from the standard biographies. In the Congressional 
Directory, 1847, Lincoln put on record the following items: 
^^ Born February 12, 1809, in Hardin County, Kentucky. 
Education defective. Profession, a lawyer. Have been a captain 
of volunteers in the Black Hawk War. Postmaster in a very 
small office. Four times a member of the Illinois Legislature, 
and a member of the lower house of Congress." 

When Lincoln says that his education was defective he means 
that he had little schooling. Altogether, becatise of necessary 
absences, he did not have more than a year at school, though 
the period during which he attended school for part of the 
time extended through some ten years. He went to school first 
in Kentucky for a few weeks, the time being divided between 
two schools taught by traveling schoolmasters. When he moved 
to Indiana at the age of seven, he did not yet know how to 
write. At the age of nine his stepmother sent him to a log 
schoolhouse, where he learned to write and soon stood at the head 
of his class. He studied at home as much as he could, even car- 
rying books about with him while he was working on the farm. 

49 



50 LINCOLN 

His next school, which he attended at the age of fourteen, was 
taught by a man who among other things taught manners to 
the country children ; for instance, one scholar would be asked 
to leave the room and then come in as if entering a parlor, 
whereupon a fellow student would conduct him around and for- 
mally introduce him to the others. At sixteen 'Lincoln attended a 
school which required a four-mile walk from his home. By the 
time he was seventeen he was six feet, four inches tall, and was 
through with school. 

During the years of his nominal attendance at school, it was 
his study at home that counted most in his mental develop- 
ment. At home he read the Bible, "^sop's Fables,'' ^^ Robinson 
Crusoe," " Pilgrim's Progress," a history of the United States, 
and Weems's " Life of Washington." A characteristic of his 
was that he could remember what he read so that he was able 
to use it afterwards. He read the Bible and ^^^sop's Fables " 
over and over; they furnished him with many of the figures 
of speech and allusions that he used later in public addresses. 
He borrowed the statutes of Indiana and read eagerly. All 
this time he practiced composition by himself, transferring into 
copy books things that particularly interested him. He was so 
keen for study that neighbors thought he was lazy; he would 
rather study than work at farming or carpentering. 

After his schooling was over, Lincoln continued his education 
through his reading. One of the books that he gave much time 
to was Kirkham's ^^ Grammar." When he was twenty-two years 
old, he borrowed this, and he would lie on the counter of the 
country store where he was clerking, and thus would pore over 
the grammar. The plays of Shakespeare were another educative 
force in his life. He committed scenes to memory and acquired 
a permanent liking for good plays. He also enjoyed lighter 
reading, such as the exciting short stories then widely popular 
but now forgotten. A standard law book, Blackstone's " Com- 
mentaries," was another book which he read in his early days. 



INTRODUCTION 



SI 



However, his law partner says that he never knew Lincoln 
later in life to read entirely through a law book of any kind, 
though the law became his profession before he abandoned it 
permanently for politics. Lincoln did not as a lawyer study 
thoroughly the rules of evidence, of pleading, and of practice ; 
instead he preferred to throw aside mere form and try to get at 
the essential points of justice involved in any case with which 
he had to do. Many stories are told by his partner, Herndon, 
of how Lincoln used to confuse opposing lawyers by unexpected 
unconventionalities of method. One eloquent opponent he com- 
pletely upset in a curious way. After Judge Logan, a learned 
and brilliant lawyer who was opposing him, had spoken elo- 
quently before the jury and had evidently impressed them 
strongly, Lincoln discredited his appeal by beginning his own 
address thus : '^ Gentlemen, you must be careful and not permit 
yourselves to be overcome by the eloquence of counsel for the 
defense. Judge Logan, I know, is an effective lawyer. I have 
met him too often to doubt that ; but shrewd and careful though 
he be, still he is sometimes wrong. Since this trial has begun, 
I have discovered that, with all his caution and fastidiousness, 
he hasn't knowledge enough to put his shirt on right." The 
opposing lawyer blushed, and the jury laughed, for all imme- 
diately observed that as a matter of fact the lawyer had on a 
new shirt and by mistake had drawn it over his head with the 
pleated bosom behind. Again, in a murder case, Lincoln won 
acquittal for his client by showing that a witness who had given 
strong testimony that he clearly saw the fatal blow struck by 
bright moonlight was wrong, because on the night in question, 
at the time mentioned by the witness, the calendar showed 
that the moon had set. Once Lincoln won a case for a poor 
widow by painting in emotional language the trials of her 
soldier husband in the Revolutionary War, and so moved the 
jury that they promptly gave her her claim for part of her 
pension money -which was being withheld from her by a pension 



52 LINCOLN 

lawyer. Yet, with all his keenness and unconventionality of 
method, Lincoln almost never took a case unless he was con- 
vinced that his client was in the right. '^ Honest Abe " the 
people called him. 

Though known as a lawyer and making his living by that 
profession, Lincoln showed a strong inclination for politics. He 
did not merely wait for the people to call him to various 
offices but worked to obtain office. He continually calculated 
and planned ahead so as to be elected ; he cultivated the ac- 
quaintance of newspaper men and strove to gain favor with 
all kinds of people. Though defeated the first time he ran for 
the legislature (at the age of twenty-three), he was so popular 
in his own precinct that he secured two hundred seventy- 
seven out of the two hundred eighty-four votes cast. He 
was so sympathetic that everybody felt drawn to him ; there 
was no one readier to do a favor for a person in need than 
young Lincoln. He was so intellectually keen that when he 
made stump speeches the majority of his hearers were con- 
vinced by his words. A contemporary describes his method as 
that of taking the heart captive and breaking like a sun over 
the understanding. His unlimited hours of listening and talk- 
ing in the country store made him acquainted with men's lives 
and their ways of thinking. His shrewd manner of confusing 
an opponent during a campaign helped to make his own elec- 
tion sure. Yet he never turned the laugh on an opponent 
merely for the sake of confusing the judgment of his hearers, 
for he held that turning the laugh on an opposing candidate 
never gained votes. 

His own sketch of his life, made in 1847, shows that up to 
that time he had been successful in politics, as a member of 
the Whig party, for he had been four times elected a member 
of the Illinois legislature, had been a postmaster, — to be sure, 
it was in a small town, and Lincoln used to say that he carried 
the office in his hat because he used to put the letters in his 



INTRODUCTION 53 

hat and start out to deliver them, — and had been elected to 
the lower house of Congress at Washington. From the time of 
completing his term at Washington until the campaign of 1856 
he sometimes had periods of deep melancholy because he felt 
that there was no further chance for political preferment for 
him. After long consideration he decided to ally himself with 
the new Republican party, because that party appeared to 
stand for the principles in which he believed. 

In 1856, when the Republicans organized in Illinois, Lincoln 
made a memorable speech at the Bloomington convention. 
Here he took the stand that slavery was wrong — a position 
which he maintained through all the crucial speech-making of 
the next four years, until his nomination for the presidency. 
He soon came to feel himself to be the leading Republican of 
his state, and was recognized as such by others. He was nom- 
inated for the United States Senate in 1858 at the Republican 
convention at Springfield. Here he made the speech known as 
the *' House-divided-against-itself Speech." Before delivering 
the speech, he read it to friends, some of whom said that it 
would cost him the senatorship ; but one man said that if he 
should deliver it as he had written it, it would make him presi- 
dent. After the campaign was under way he challenged his 
Democratic opponent. Judge Douglas, to a series of debates. 
Douglas agreed to meet him at seven places, one in each 
congressional district outside of Chicago and Springfield. 

The two men had known each other for twenty-four years. 
They were in the Illinois legislature together. They were ad- 
mitted to practice in the Supreme Court of the state on the 
same day. They both courted the same lady. In 1846 they 
both represented Illinois at Washington ; Lincoln in the House 
and Douglas in the Senate. 

Lincoln did not win the election to the Senate. At Freeport, 
during the debates, he deliberately askecj Douglas a question 
which his friends counseled him not to ask, because they were 



54 LINCOLN 

sure that Douglas would say Yes to it and thus gain the seat in 
the Senate. Sure enough Douglas did say Yes, but Lincoln was 
satisfied because he felt certain that Douglas, by answering the 
question affirmatively, made it impossible for the Southerners 
to vote for him if he should run for the presidency. Lincoln 
said, '*I am after larger game; the battle of i860 is worth a 
hundred of this." Here is the momentous question that Lincoln 
asked Douglas : " Can the people of a United States Territory, 
in any lawful way, against the wish of any citizen of the United 
States, exclude slavery from its limits, prior to the formation of 
a State Constitution ? " 

After his defeat by Douglas, Lincoln wrote to a friend that 
he was glad he had made the race, because on the great and 
durable questions of the age it had given him a hearing that he 
could have had in no other way. He continued, ^' Though I 
now sink out of view and shall be forgotten, I believe I have 
made some marks which will tell for the cause of liberty long 
after I am gone." Certain it is that the Lincoln-Douglas de- 
bates were the '^ greatest intellectual wrestle that has ever taken 
place in this country." 

By the year i860 Lincoln was so widely and favorably known 
in the Middle West that it is safe to call him the leading Repub- 
lican of that whole region. His speech at Cooper Union in 
New York in February of that year and the speeches that he 
made in New England during the same eastern trip brought him 
a personal acquaintance with principal members of his party in 
the eastern states. After leaving New York he visited his son 
Robert at Phillips Exeter Academy, where the boy was pre- 
paring for the Harvard entrance examinations. In a speech in 
Connecticut during this same eastern trip Lincoln said sub- 
stantially what he had said in New York. It is interesting to 
note in passing that Connecticut was one of the states that in 
the nominating convention at Chicago a few months later turned 
from supporting Seward to give its vote for Lincoln and thus 



INTRODUCTION 55 

practically assured the latter's nomination. He was nominated 
and then was elected, receiving one hundred eighty electoral 
votes. Douglas, one of the candidates, received only twelve 
votes; with one exception the slave states were all against 
him, as Lincoln had predicted they would be. Douglas tried 
to please everybody, and pleased almost no one. Lincoln stuck 
to eternal truths and won the presidency. 

The story of Lincoln's acts as president during the Civil War 
lies outside the scope of this sketch. It is only necessary to 
recall to the minds of students of the Cooper Institute speech 
one or two points. One speech that Lincoln made while he was 
president has become a model of simple oratory — the Gettys- 
burg address. Lincoln's state papers, such as the Emancipation 
Proclamation and the inaugural addresses, reveal the strong man 
back of them. The second inaugural address is unquestionably 
an extraordinary effort. In classic simplicity of language, in 
unstudied revelation of the noble ideals of a just and tender 
spirit, in interweaving of scriptural quotations with language as 
simple and clear as scripture itself, these few short pages stand 
unsurpassed in the history of our English tongue. Since Lin- 
coln's death his reputation has grown rather than diminished. 
The last Congress authorized the building of a Lincoln memorial 
to cost two million dollars. But better than this, Lincoln's name 
is written into the lives of all American citizens. 



THE BASIS OF LINCOLN'S ADDRESS AT COOPER 
INSTITUTE (DOUGLAS'S COLUMBUS SPEECH) 

The first main part of Lincoln's speech at Cooper Institute 
is based upon a quotation from a speech at Columbus, Ohio, 
by Senator Stephen A. Douglas, made on September 7, 1859, 
and reported in the New York Times of September 8, 1859. 
The Times justly considered itself very enterprising in reporting 
Dougla's's speech in full the next day after it was spoken, for 



56 LINCOLN 

it must be remembered that the telegraph was then something 
of a novelty. In pluming itself on its enterprise in reporting 
the speech by telegraph the newspaper said : 

The orator on this occasion had hardly retired from the platform 
when the whispering wires began their mysterious work, and, flashed 
over nearly a thousand miles of space, the words caught up from his 
lips by the watchful stenographer in the early afternoon in the heart of 
the great West were transferred to type before midnight in the metropolis 
on the Atlantic coast. 

In order to see whether Lincoln fairly quoted Douglas, the 
great exponent of Democratic principles, it is well to read just 
what Douglas said in the speech from which Lincoln took the 
text for his own speech at Cooper Institute. 

In beginning his address Douglas said informally that he 
held his political action to be bound by ^^ that great principle of 
the Nebraska bill which tells every political community to regulate 
its own affairs and mind its own business, and not to interfere 
with those of its neighbors." [Cheers, and cries of '' Good."] 

He made his position with regard to slavery clear, as shown 
by the following selections from his speech : 

I wish to invite your attention to-day to those great principles which 
underlie the Democratic Creed, and draw the dividing line between the 
Democracy and all the other political parties in this country upon this 
vexed question of Slavery, which for the last few years seems to have 
absorbed all other questions. The Democratic Party hold that it is the 
right of the people of every State, of every Territory, and of every politi- 
cal community within this Confederacy to decide that question to suit 
themselves. We not only apply that principle to the question of Slavery, 
but we extend it to all the local and domestic institutions of all the 
States and all the Territories of the Union. On the other hand, we are 
told by the leaders of the Republican Party that there is an irrepressible 
conflict between Freedom and Slavery, free labor and slave labor, 
Free States and Slave States, and that it is their intention to con- 
tinue to excite, agitate, and divide the country until Slavery shall be 
abolished or established throughout the country. In other words, the 
Republican Party hold that there must be uniformity in the local insti- 
tutions of all the States and Territories of the Union. Mr. Seward, in 



INTRODUCTION 57 

his Rochester speech, says that it is an irrepressible conflict between 
enduring forces, that must last until uniformity shall be established. 

Mr. Lincoln, in the Illinois canvass of last year, compared it to a 
house divided against itself which could not stand, and said that this 
Union could not permanently endure divided into Free and Slave 
States, as our fathers made it. 

Hence you find that in the platform of the Republican Party, adopted 
in Philadelphia in 1856, it is declared that Congress possesses sovereign 
powers over all the territories of the Union, and that it is both their 
right and their duty to exercise that power for the abolishment and 
prohibition of African Slavery. 

Here you find at once the line of conflict between the Republican 
and the Democratic Party. The Republican Party hold that the Fed- 
eral Government can decide the Slavery question for the people of the 
Territories and the new States ; — we Democrats maintain that the Fed- 
eral Government has no right to interfere with the question, either to 
establish, to protect, to abolish, or to prohibit Slavery ; but that the 
people in each State, and each Territory, shall be left entirely free to 
decide it for themselves. ['* Hear, hear," and applause.] 

This question of the right of the people, in their local legislatures, to 
decide all internal questions to suit themselves, is not a new doctrine. 
It is as old as the principles of free government on the American Con- 
tinent. It was the first question that seriously divided the American 
Colonies from the British Government, and out of which the first serious 
cause of quarrel arose. . . . Our fathers did not at first desire inde- 
pendence — they protested that they did not wish to separate from 
Great Britain ; but what they contended for was the right of local self- 
government in their internal affairs, without the interference of Parha- 
ment, and if they could not obtain that right under the British Govern- 
ment they would declare their independence and fight for the right. . . . 
Thus you find that up to the time the Constitution was adopted this 
great principle of local self-government was maintained in the govern- 
ment of the new Territories, or new States, as they were then called. 
Now let me ask you, is it reasonable to suppose, after our fathers 
had fought the battles of the Revolution in behalf of the right of 
each Colony to govern itself in respect to its local and domestic 
concerns, that then they conferred upon Congress the arbitrary sover- 
eign power which they had refused to the British Parliament ? [Cries 
of " Never."] 

The Republican Party, in their Philadelphia National Convention 
[1856], affirmed that Congress has sovereign power over the Territories 



58 LINCOLN 

for their government, and that it is their duty to prohibit Slavery. . . . 
Washington, Jefferson, Hancock, Franklin, and the sages of the Revo- 
lution decided that the Colonies, Provinces, and Territories, when 
organized as political communities, had the inalienable right to govern 
themselves in respect to their local and domestic concerns. That is pre- 
cisely what I now assert on behalf of the Territories. ... If we will 
only apply the great principle of non-intervention by Congress, and self- 
government in the Territories, leaving the people to do as they please, 
there will be peace and harmony between all sections of the Union. 

What interest have you in Ohio in the question of Slavery in South 
Carolina ? You say that you do not think that Slavery is necessary or 
beneficial. That may be true, but your opinion might be different if 
your property was all invested in a rice plantation in South Carolina, 
where the white man cannot live and cultivate the soil. In Ohio it is a 
question only between the white man and the negro. But if you go 
farther South you will find that it is a question between the negro and 
the crocodile. The question then may be a very different one under 
different climates. 

Our fathers^ when they framed this Government under which we live, 
understood this question just as well, and even better^ than we do now. 
They knew when they made this Republic that a country so broad as 
ours, with such a variety of climate, soil, and productions, must have a 
variety of interests, requiring different laws adapted to each locality. 
They knew that the laws which would suit the green hills of New 
England were ill adapted to the rice plantations of South Carolina; 
that the laws and regulations which would suit the corn and wheat fields 
of Ohio might not be well adapted to the sugar plantations of Louisiana ; 
that the people in different localities, having a different climate, different 
interests and necessities, would want different laws adapted to each 
locality ; and hence, when the Constitution was made, it was adopted on 
the theory that each State should decide the Slavery question for itself, 
and also all the local and domestic questions. 



CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE DELIVERY AND PUBLI- 
CATION OF LINCOLN'S ADDRESS 

In October, 1859, one month after Douglas's speech at 
Columbus, Lincoln received an invitation to deliver a lecture in 
the course then being arranged by Plymouth Church, Brooklyn. 



INTRODUCTION 59 

Lincoln accepted the invitation and notified the committee 
that he would speak on a political subject. He named the 
time as some day late in February of the following year. Early 
in February of that year he learned that instead of being 
under the auspices of Plymouth Church the lecture was to be 
arranged for by the Young Men's Republican Union of New 
York City. The committee from the Republican organization 
selected a large hall for the occasion so as to make Lincoln's 
appearance in New York City memorable. A number of gen- 
tlemen of the city, among them the late Solomon W. Johnson, 
gave twenty dollars each to meet the expenses of the meeting 
and to pay Lincoln the two hundred dollars agreed upon for 
the delivery of the lecture. It was decided that an admission 
fee of twenty-five cents should be charged for the benefit of 
the Plymouth Church lecture course. The hall selected was that 
of the Cooper Institute building, since more generally known 
as Cooper Union, an educational institution established by Peter 
Cooper in 1857. In the newspapers of the time the hall is 
spoken of as mammoth. It is still considered a large hall and is 
the place where to this day some of the most important politi- 
cal meetings in New York are held. 

On the morning of Monday, February 27 , i860, the New 
York papers ran the following advertisement : 

THE HON. ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

OF Illinois will speak at the 

COOPER INSTITUTE 

This (Monday) Evening, February 27 

TO THE 

REPUBLICANS OF NEW YORK 
Tickets 25 Cents 



6o LINCOLN 

On the editorial page of the Tribune for the same date this 
additional notice of the meeting appeared : 

Remember Abraham Lincoln's Address at the Cooper Institute 
to-night, and ask your friends who are not Republicans to accompany 
you to hear it. It is not probable that Mr. Lincoln will be heard again 
in our City this year if ever. Let us improve the present opportunity. 

When Mr. Lincoln reached Nev^ York on the Saturday preced- 
ing his lecture he was surprised that so much was being made 
of the approaching event. He began to feel abashed. He was 
sure that he would look awkward in his new suit of clothes, 
and he knew that he would feel ill at ease. As he entered the 
great, crowded hall escorted by David Dudley Field and William 
Cullen Bryant, he was greeted with applause. On the platform 
were distinguished Republicans — ex-Governor John A. King, 
General James W. Nye, Almshouse Governors Isaac J. Oliver 
and Washington Smith, E. Delafield Smith, Dr. S. Lounsberry, 
A. J. Dittenhoeffer, Esq., Judge E. D. Culver, Theodore Tilton, 
Thomas B. Stillman, Samuel Sinclair, J. S. Gibbons. '^A con- 
siderable number of ladies graced the occasion by their presence." 
Stopping the applause, Mr. Field said : 

Fellow Republicans : I beg leave to nominate as Chairman of this 
meeting a Republican whom you all know well — William Cullen Bryant. 
[Cheers.] Those of you who are in favor of Mr. Bryant will say Aye. 
[General and thunderous " aye."] Those of you who are not in favor 
will say No. [Silence.] There is no No. [Laughter and applause.] 

On taking the chair, Mr. Bryant said : 

My friends, it is a grateful office that I perform in introducing to you 
at this time an eminent citizen of the West, whom you know, or whom 
you have known hitherto only by fame, but who has consented to ad- 
dress a New York assemblage this evening. The Great West, my 
friends, is a potent auxiliary in the battle we are fighting for Freedom 
against Slavery ; in behalf of civilization against barbarism ; for the 
occupation of some of the fairest regions of our continent, on which 
the settlers are now building their cabins. 



INTRODUCTION 6l 

He continued by saying that one of the children of the West, 
who had already rendered gpod service to the Republican cause, 
would speak. At the mention of the name of the speaker, 
Abraham Lincoln, there was prolonged applause followed by 
"Three cheers for A l^ram 'Lincoln.^ ^ According to the Times, 
this is the way Lincoln acted at this point : " Mr. Lincoln ad- 
vanced to the desk and, smiling graciously upon his audience, 
complacently awaited the termination of the cheering, and then 
proceeded with his address." 

Mr. Lincoln had good reason to await with complacence the 
time for starting his address, for if ever a man made thorough 
preparation for an important speech, he did for this one. After 
he accepted the invitation in October, he spent many hours in 
reading dusty congressional reports and in reviewing the his- 
tory of our government. The book which gave him most of 
the facts for the first main section of his speech was Elliot's 
" Debates on the Federal Constitution." It is said that in the 
preparation of the speech for issuance as a campaign document 
a corps of helpers spent several weeks in verifying Lincoln's 
historical references. He himself spent more time and thought 
on this speech than on any other that he had previously made. 

Yet, with all the assurance that comes to one who has made 
adequate preparation, Lincoln mingled some diffidence, for he 
said on his return home to Springfield that during the address 
he imagined the audience saw the contrast between his Western 
clothes and the neat-fitting clothes of Bryant and others on the 
platform ; he said that whenever he raised his arm to make a 
gesture, the collar of his coat on the right side would fly up and 
make him feel uncomfortable. General Stewart L. Woodford 
used to tell how during the address Lincoln would get hold 
of his suspenders on each side under his armpits and in his 
earnestness of talk would keep pulling his suspenders farther 
and farther out until he suddenly let go of them, whereupon 
they would spring back with a loud snap. 



62 LINCOLN 

The Tribune relates that the speech excited frequent and 
irrepressible applause. Lincoln's occasional repetition of his 
text never failed to provoke a burst of cheers and audible 
smiles. He inserted a few homely stories into the midst of 
his oration, but these do not appear in the published speech. 
After Lincoln's oration, brief speeches were made by Horace 
Greeley, editor of the Tribune^ and by several other prominent 
Republicans. Mr. Greeley said that the orator of the occasion 
was a specimen of what free labor and free expression of ideas 
could produce. One of the other speakers. General Nye, said 
that he would not allow himself to disturb the effect of the ad- 
dress of the evening by any remarks of his ; anything he had 
to say would better be said on a later and more appropriate 
occasion. ^* The vast assemblage then quietly dispersed." 

After the address Lincoln had supper at the Athenaeum Club 
with several members of the Young Men's Central Republican 
Union, and then rode in a street car to the Astor House, where 
he stayed while he was in New York. It is interesting to note 
that the next time he came to New York he rode down Broad- 
way standing in an open barouche drawn by four white horses, 
and that all the way he was cheered by the throngs in the street. 

The next morning after the address at Cooper Union, the 
Tribune printed the speech in full with the introductory state- 
ment that it was on national politics. The Times gave almost 
the whole of the first page to a report of the speech and on the 
editorial page ran the following summary : 

His text lay in the sentiment of Senator Douglas, that those who 
framed the Constitution understood the power of the Federal Govern- 
ment over the question of Slavery as well, if not better than ourselves. 
He agreed with Mr. Douglas on that point, and then proceeded to 
develop what the precise understanding of our fathers was in that par- 
ticular ; and, in doing so, demonstrated that only three among them had 
ever by word or act indicated a doubt as to the power of the Federal 
Government over Slavery in the Territories. Twenty-three of them had 
voted for bills, and Washington had signed a bill, by which Congress 



INTRODUCTION 63 

exerted a directory power over Slavery in the only Territory then held 
by the United States. The concluding portion of the address was de- 
voted to plain talk to the people of the South; an assurance to them 
that the Republican Party is the conservative party of the day, and that 
Republican principles in relation to slavery are the same as those 
believed in and acted upon by the founders of the Republic. He also 
counseled the Republicans to deal gently with their opponents and to 
remain true to their creed. 

The other two leading New York dailies also gave full reports 
of the address. 

The Tribune printed the following editorial : 

The Speech of Abraham Lincoln at the Cooper Institute last 
evening was one of the happiest and most convincing political argu- 
ments ever made in this City, and was addressed to a crowded and 
most appreciating audience. Since the days of Clay and Webster, no 
man has spoken to a larger assemblage of the intellect and mental 
culture of our City. Mr. Lincoln is one of Nature's orators, using his 
rare powers solely and effectively to elucidate and to convince, though 
their inevitable effect is to delight and electrify as well. We present 
herewith a very full and accurate report of this speech ; yet the tones, 
the gestures, the kindling eye, and the mirth-provoking look defy the 
reporter's skill. The vast assemblage frequently rang with cheers and 
shouts of applause, which were prolonged and intensified at the close. 
No man ever before made such an impression on his first appeal to a 
New York audience. 

Mr. Lincoln speaks for the Republican cause to-night at Providence,- 
R.I., and it is hoped that he will find time to speak once or more in 
Connecticut before he sets his face homeward. 

We shall soon issue his Speech of last night in pamphlet form for 
cheap circulation. 

ITS EFFECTIVENESS 

As an orator Lincoln had an appearance, voice, and manner 
peculiar to himself. He was, as we have seen, six feet four 
inches tall, but his hearers sometimes thought he seemed seven 
feet tall when he raised clenched fists on high and let them 
sweep through the air as he denounced slavery. He was thin 
through the chest and somewhat stoop-shouldered. His face 



64 LINCOLN 

was yellowish and wrinkled, large and sharp-featured. His little 
gray eyes, deep set under heavy brows, would flash as he roused 
to his subject. When he began to speak, his voice would be 
acute and shrilling in pitch, but would mellow into a more har- 
monious and pleasant sound as he continued an address. ^^ He 
always stood squarely on his feet, toe even with toe,'' says 
Horace White, who was one of the best reporters of his speeches. 
Lincoln did not touch anything or lean on anything for support. 
He did not walk backward and forward on the platform. In 
beginning an address he looked the picture of awkwardness and 
diffidence, but won people nevertheless by his earnestness, his 
unaffected sincerity, his good humor, his plain common sense, 
and his irrefutable logic. Horace White says that he had heard 
all the great public speakers of the United States subsequent to 
the time of Clay and Webster, but he was sure that Lincoln 
would bring more men, of doubtful or hostile leanings, around 
to his way of thinking, by talking to them on a platform, than 
any other man. 

Probably Lincoln's chief source of power as a speaker lay in 
the fact that he held always to a main line of thought and that 
this main line of thought was a big, underlying question of the 
day. Over and over again in his speeches from 1854 to i860 
he held that (i) slavery was wrong, and (2) the government 
had a right to control its spread into new territory. With funda- 
mental conceptions at the base of his speeches, Lincoln had a 
way of building up details $0 that any one would have to under- 
stand the speaker's meaning. As a young man he practiced 
putting things to himself in different ways, stating and restating 
them, till he was sure they would certainly be understood. So 
he did in his speeches. He would put something from one angle, 
then look at it from another angle, and soon he had enveloped 
the subject. There was no escape from his plain reasoning. 

This was particularly the case with the Cooper Institute 
speech and was a leading cause of its effectiveness. The audience 



INTRODUCTION 65 

laughed aloud with joy at the successive blows by which 
Lincoln demolished Senator Douglas's contention, or rather 
made it support his own belief. Lincoln seemed like a tre- 
mendous drop hammer crushing something. First he stated the 
short two-line text by which Douglas supported his contention 
regarding Federal authority. Then Lincoln began crushing. As 
one reads through the relentlessly consecutive paragraphs one 
feels as if the drop hammer were inevitably falling on that text. 
The constant repetition of phrases seems like a constant falling 
of the hammer. At the end, the text is completely crushed. One 
wonders how a man of such alertness of mind as Douglas could 
ever have given utterance to the demolished proposition in the 
sense in which he used it. While uttered with the purpose of 
supporting the policy of allowing the choice between Slavery or 
No Slavery to be made by the people of a Territory, the asser- 
tion had been shown by Lincoln to mean the precise opposite, 
and to be a principal foundation for the essential Republican 
doctrine of Federal control. One of the main reasons why the 
Republicans held that the central government should control as 
to Slavery in the Territories was because the founders of the 
government held this opinion. 

Besides framing a large topic and developing it with absolute 
clearness, Lincoln had other means for making his speech effec- 
tive. His growth from his first political speech (in 1832) to the 
time of his Cooper Institute speech did not consist in developing 
a more effective method of going straight to the center of a 
topic, elaborating the topic lucidly, and carrying conviction, 
for Lincoln early possessed this ability. The chief point of 
growth is the more effective phrasing, the more precise dic- 
tion, and the grace of rhythmic utterance. For further con- 
sideration of these charms of style, which added materially to 
the effectiveness of the speech, the student is urged to devote 
some time to a reading of the speech aloud, thoughtfully, after 
sufficient study. 



66 LINCOLN 

On the whole it may be said in conclusion that the Cooper 
Institute speech was effective in that — 

1. It showed extraordinary power in compact arrangement, 
felicitous phrasing, and precise selection of words, so that it 
pleased one of the most select audiences that ever heard a speech. 

2. It confirmed in the minds of Lincoln's eastern hearers the 
favorable impression they had already formed from reading the 
Lincoln-Douglas debates. 

3. It restated with entire clearness the fundamental Repub- 
lican position on the subject of Slavery. 

4. It distinctly prepared the way for Lincoln's nomination to 
the presidency. 

USEFUL BOOKS FOR REFERENCE , 

1. Abraham Lincoln, by George Haven Putnam. G. P. Putnam's 
Sons, 1909. An appendix of this good book contains the Cooper In- 
stitute speech with annotations by C. C. Nott and Cephas Brainerd. 

2. Abraham Lincoln : The True Story of a Great Life, by William 
H. Herndon and Jesse W. Weik, with an Introduction by Horace 
White. D. Appleton and Company, 1892. Two volumes. A chatty 
book full of personal flavor. Probably advanced high-school students 
would enjoy this biography better than any other of Lincoln. Hern- 
don was for twenty years Lincoln's law partner and friend. 

3. Lincoln : A History, by John G. Nicolay and John Hay. The 
Century Co., 1890. Ten volumes. The complete, authoritative book 
on Lincoln. 

4. A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln, by John G. Nicolay. The 
Century Co., 1902. 

5. The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln, by Helen Nicolay. The 
Century Co., 1908. A book of the kind that grips the attention of 
boys and girls from start to finish. It has excellent illustrations, in- 
cluding a drawing of Lincoln's invention for buoying vessels and a 
facsimile of the Gettysburg speech. 

6. Abraham Lincoln: An Essay, by Carl Schurz. Houghton 
Mifflin Company, 1 891 . This short sketch of 1 1 7 pages was originally 



INTRODUCTION 67 

published as a review of Nicolay and Hay's life of Lincoln. It 
includes a remarkable photograph of Lincoln probably taken in i860. 

7. Men of Our Times, or Leading Patriots of the Day, by 
Harriet Beecher Stowe. Hartford Publishing Co., 1868. Pages 11 
through no are a biography of Lincoln, which ought to be printed 
alone in book form. 

8. Eulogy on Abraham Lincoln, delivered before the Municipal 
Authorities of Boston, June 6, 1865, by Charles Sumner, published 
by Ticknor & Fields, 1865. An admirable example of this type of 
literature. 

9. Files of the newspapers of i860, especially the New York 
Times, Tribune^ and Evening Post. 

10. Complete works of Abraham Lincoln, edited by John G. 
Nicolay and John Hay. 



LINCOLN'S ADDRESS AT COOPER INSTI- 
TUTE, NEW YORK, FEBRUARY 27, 1860 

Mr. President and Fellow-Citizens of New York: — 
The facts with which I shall deal this evening are mainly old 
and familiar ; nor is there anything new in the general use I 
shall make of them. If there shall be any novelty, it will be in 
5 the mode of presenting the facts, and the inferences and obser- 
vations following that presentation. In his speech last autumn at 
Columbus, Ohio, as reported in the New York Times^ Senator 
Douglas said : 

Our fathers, when they framed the government under which we live, 
lo understood this question just as well, and even better, than we do now. 

I fully endorse this, and I adopt it as a text for this discourse. 
I so adopt it because it furnishes a precise and an agreed starting 
point for a discussion between Republicans and that wing of 
the Democracy headed by Senator Douglas. It simply leaves the 
15 inquiry : What was the understanding those fathers had of the 
question mentioned '^, 

What is the frame of government under which we live ? The 
answer must be, " The Constitution of the United States." 
That Constitution consists of the original, framed in 1787, and 
20 under which the present government first went into operation, 
and twelve subsequently framed amendments, the first ten of 
which were framed in 1789. 

Who were our fathers that framed the Constitution .? I sup- 
pose the '' thirty-nine " who signed the original instrument may 
25 be fairly called our fathers who framed that part of the present 
government. It is almost exactly true to say they framed it, 

68 



ADDRESS AT COOPER INSTITUTE 69 

and it is altogether true to say they fairly represented the opinion 
and sentiment of the whole nation at that time. Their names, 
being familiar to nearly all, and accessible to quite all, need not 
now be repeated. 

I take these " thirty-nine " for the present, as being " our 5 
fathers who framed the government under which we live." 
What is the question which, according to the text, those fathers 
understood '' just as well, and even better, than we do now " ? 

It is this : Does the proper division of local from Federal 
authority, or anything in the Constitution, forbid our Federal 10 
Government to control as to slavery in our Federal Territories ? 

Upon this. Senator Douglas holds the affirmative, and Re- 
publicans the negative. This affirmation and denial form an 
issue ; and this issue — this question — is precisely what the 
text declares our fathers understood ^* better than we." Let us 15 
now inquire whether the " thirty-nine," or any of them, ever 
acted upon this question ; and if they did, how they acted upon 
it — how they expressed that better understanding. In 1784, 
three years before the Constitution, the United States then 
owning the Northwestern Territory and no other, the Congress 20 
of the Confederation had before them the question of prohibit- 
ing slavery in that Territory ; and four of the " thirty-nine " 
who afterward framed the Constitution were in that Congress, 
and voted on that question. Of these, Roger Sherman, Thomas 
Mifflin, and Hugh Williamson voted for the prohibition, thus 25 
showing that, in their understanding, no line dividing local from 
Federal authority, nor anything else, properly forbade the Fed- 
eral Government to control as to slavery in Federal Territory. 
The other of the four, James McHenry, voted against the pro- 
hibition, showing that for some cause he thought it improper 30 
to vote for it. 

In 1787, still before the Constitution, but while the conven- 
tion was in session framing it, and while the Northwestern 
Territory still was the only Territory owned by the United States, 



70 LINCOLN 

the same question of prohibiting slavery in the Territory 
again came before the Congress of the Confederation; and 
two more of the '* thirty-nine " who afterward signed the Con- 
stitution were in that Congress, and voted on the question. 
5 They were William Blount and William Few ; and they both 
voted for the prohibition — thus showing that, in their under- 
standing, no line dividing local from Federal authority, nor any- 
thing else, properly forbade the Federal Government to control 
as to slavery in Federal Territory. This time the prohibition 

10 became a law, being part of what is now well known as the 
Ordinance of '87. 

The question of Federal control of slavery in the Territories 
seems not to have been directly before the convention which 
framed the original Constitution ; and hence it is not recorded 

15 that the "thirty-nine," or any of them, while engaged on that 
instrument expressed any opinion on that precise question. 

In 1789, by the first Congress which sat under the Constitu- 
tion, an act was passed to enforce the Ordinance of '87, including 
the prohibition of slavery in the Northwestern Territory. The 

20 bill for this act was reported by one of the '' thirty-nine " — 
Thomas Fitzsimmons, then a member of the House of Repre- 
sentatives from Pennsylvania. It went through all its stages 
without a word of opposition, and finally passed both branches 
without ayes and nays, which is equivalent to a unanimous 

25 passage. In this Congress there were sixteen of the thirty-nine 
fathers who framed the original Constitution. They were : 

John Langdon William Few Pierce Butler 

Nicholas Oilman Abraham Baldwin Daniel Carroll 

William S. Johnson Rufus King James Madison 

Roger Sherman William Paterson George Clymer 

Robert Morris Richard Bassett 

Thomas Fitzsimmons George Read 

This shows that, in their understanding, no line dividing local 
from Federal authority, nor anything in the Constitution, properly 



ADDRESS AT COOPER INSTITUTE 71 

forbade Congress to prohibit slavery in the Federal Terri- 
tory ; else both their fidelity to correct principle and their oath 
to support the Constitution would have constrained them to 
oppose the prohibition. 

Again, George Washington, another of the " thirty-nine," was 5 
then President of the United States and as such approved and 
signed the bill, thus completing its validity as a law, and thus 
showing that, in his understanding, no line dividing local from 
Federal authority, nor anything in the Constitution, forbade the 
Federal Government to control as to slavery in Federal territory. 10 

No great while after the adoption of the original Constitution, 
North Carolina ceded to the Federal Government the country 
now constituting the State of Tennessee ; and a few years later 
' Georgia ceded that which now constitutes the States of Missis- 
sippi and Alabama. In both deeds of cession it was made a 15 
condition by the ceding states that the Federal Government 
should not prohibit slavery in the ceded country. Besides this, 
slavery was then actually in the ceded country. Under these 
circumstances. Congress, on taking charge of these countries, 
did not absolutely prohibit slavery within them. But they did 20 
interfere with it — take control of it — even there, to a certain 
extent. In 1798 Congress organized the Territory of Missis- 
sippi. In the act of organization they prohibited the bringing 
of slaves into the Territory from any place without the United 
States, by fine, and giving freedom to slaves so brought. This 25 
act passed both branches of Congress without yeas and nays. 
In that Congress were three of the " thirty-nine " who framed 
the original Constitution. They were John Langdon, George 
Read, and Abraham Baldwin. They all probably voted for it. 
Certainly they would have placed their opposition to it upon 30 
record if, in their understanding, any line dividing local from 
Federal authority, or anything in the Constitution, properly 
forbade the Federal Government to control as to slavery in 
Federal territory. 



72 LINCOLN 

In 1803 the Federal Government purchased the Louisiana 
country. Our former territorial acquisitions came from certain 
of our own states ; but this Louisiana country was acquired 
from a foreign nation. In 1804 Congress gave a territorial 
5 organization to that part of it which now constitutes the State 
of Louisiana. New Orleans, lying within that part, was an old 
and comparatively large city. There were other considerable 
towns and settlements, and slavery was extensively and thor- 
oughly intermingled with the people. Congress did not, in the 
10 Territorial Act, prohibit slavery ; but they did interfere with it 
— take control of it — in a more marked and extensive way 
than they did in the case of Mississippi. The substance of the 
provision therein made in relation to slaves was : 

1. That no slave should be imported into the territory from 
15 foreign parts. 

2. That no slave should be carried into it who had been im- 
ported into the United States since the first day of May, 1798. 

3. That no slave should be carried into it except by the owner 
and for his own use as a settler ; the penalty in all the cases be- 

20 ing a fine upon the violator of the law and freedom to the slave. 
This act also was passed without ayes or nays. In the Con- 
gress which passed it there were two of the ^^ thirty-nine." 
They were Abraham Baldwin and Jonathan Dayton. As stated 
in the case of Mississippi it is probable they both voted for it. 

25 They would not have allowed it to pass without recording their 
opposition to it if, in their understanding, it violated either the 
line properly dividing local from Federal authority, or any pro- 
vision of the Constitution. 

In 181 9- 1820 came and passed the Missouri question. Many 

30 votes were taken, by yeas and nays, in both branches of Con- 
gress, upon the various phases of the general question. Two of 
the " thirty-nine " — Rufus King and Charles Pinckney — were 
members of that Congress. Mr. King steadily voted for slavery 
prohibition and against all compromises, while Mr. Pinckney as 



ADDRESS AT COOPER INSTITUTE 73 

steadily voted against slavery prohibition and against all com- 
promises. By this, Mr. King showed that, in his understanding, 
no line dividing local from Federal authority, nor anything in 
the Constitution, was violated by Congress prohibiting slavery 
in Federal territory ; while Mr. Pinckney, by his votes, showed 5 
that, in his understanding, there was some sufficient reason for 
opposing such prohibition in that case. 

The cases I have mentioned are the only acts of the " thirty- 
nine," or of any of them, upon the direct issue, which I have 
been able to discover. 10 

To enumerate the persons who thus acted as being four in 
1784, two in 1787, seventeen in 1789, three in 1798, two in 
1804, and two in 181 9- 1820, there would be thirty of them. 
But this would be counting John Langdon, Roger Sherman, 
William Few, Rufus King, and George Read each twice, and 15 
Abraham Baldwin three times. The true number of those of 
the " thirty-nine " whom I have shown to have acted upon the 
question which, by the text, they understood better than we, is 
twenty-three, leaving sixteen not shown to have acted upon it 
in any way. 20 

Here, then, we have twenty-three out of our thirty-nine 
fathers ^^ who framed the government under which we live," 
who have, upon their official responsibility and their corporal 
oaths, acted upon the very question which the text affirms they 
'^ understood just as well, and even better, than we do now " ; 25 
and twenty-one of them — a clear majority of the whole ^^ thirty- 
nine " — so acting upon it as to make them guilty of gross 
political impropriety and willful perjury if, in their understand- 
ing, any proper division between local and Federal authority, or 
anything in the Constitution they had made themselves and 30 
sworn to support, forbade the Federal Government to control 
as to slavery in the Federal Territories. Thus the twenty-one 
acted ; and, as actions speak louder than words, so actions 
under such responsibility speak still louder. 



74 LINCOLN 

Two of the twenty-three voted against congressional prohibi- 
tion of slavery in the Federal Territories, in the instances in 
which they acted upon the question. But for what reasons 
they so voted is not known. They may have done so because 
5 they thought a proper division of local from Federal authority, 
or some provision or principle of the Constitution, stood in the 
way; or they may, without any such question, have voted 
against the prohibition on what appeared to them to be suffi- 
cient grounds of expediency. No one who has sworn to support 

10 the Constitution can conscientiously vote for what he under- 
stands to be an unconstitutional measure, however expedient he 
may think it ; but one may and ought to vote against a meas- 
ure which he deems constitutional if, at the same time, he deems 
it inexpedient. It, therefore, would be unsafe to set down even 

15 the two who voted against the prohibition as having done so 

because, in their understanding, any proper division of local* from 

Federal authority, or anything in the Constitution, forbade the 

Federal Government to control as to slavery in Federal territory. 

The remaining sixteen of the *^ thirty-nine," so far as I have 

20 discovered, have left no record of their understanding upon the 
direct question of Federal control of slavery in the Federal Terri- 
tories. But there is much reason to believe that their understand- 
ing upon that question would not have appeared different from 
that of their twenty-three compeers, had it been manifested at all. 

25 For the purpose of adhering rigidly to the text, I have pur- 
posely omitted whatever understanding may have been mani- 
fested by any person, however distinguished, other than the 
thirty-nine fathers who framed the original Constitution ; and for 
the same reason I have also omitted whatever understanding 

30 may have been manifested by any of the '' thirty-nine " even on 
any other phase of the general question of slavery. If we should 
look into their acts and declarations on those other phases, as 
the foreign slave trade and the morality and policy of slavery 
generally, it would appear to us that on the direct question of 



ADDRESS AT COOPER INSTITUTE 75 

Federal control of slavery in Federal Territories, the sixteen, if 
they had acted at all, would probably have acted just as the 
twenty-three did. Among that sixteen were several of the most 
noted anti-slavery men of those times, — as Dr. Franklin, Alex- 
ander Hamilton, and Gouverneur Morris, — while there was not 5 
one now known to have been otherwise, unless it may be John 
Rutledge, of South Carolina. 

The sum of the whole is that of our thirty-nine fathers who 
framed the original Constitution, twenty-one — a clear majority 
of the whole — certainly understood that no proper division of 10 
local from Federal authority, nor any part of the Constitution, 
forbade the Federal Government to control as to slavery in the 
Federal Territories ; while all the rest had probably the same 
understanding. Such, unquestionably, was the understanding of 
our fathers who framed the original Constitution; and the text 15 
affirms that they understood the question ^^ better than we.'' 

But, so far, I have been considering the understanding of the 
question manifested by the framers of the original Constitution. 
In and by the' original instrument, a mode was provided for 
amending it ; and, as I have already stated, the present frame 20 
of ^* the government under which we live '' consists of -that 
original, and twelve amendatory articles framed and adopted 
since. Those who now insist that Federal control of slavery in 
Federal Territories violates the Constitution point us to the pro- 
visions which they suppose it thus violates ; and, I understand, 25 
they all fix upon provisions in these amendatory articles, and 
not in the original instrument. The Supreme Court, in the Dred 
Scott case, plant themselves upon the fifth amendment, which 
provides that " no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or 
property without due process of law " ; while Senator Douglas 30 
and his peculiar adherents plant themselves upon the tenth 
amendment, providing that " the powers not delegated to the 
United States by the Constitution are reserved to the States 
respectively, or to the people." 



y6 LINCOLN 

Now, it so happens that these amendments were framed by 
the first Congress which sat under the Constitution — the iden- 
tical Congress which passed the act already mentioned, enforcing 
the prohibition of slavery in the Northwestern Territory. Not 
5 only was it the same Congress, but they were the identical, 
same individual men who, at the same session, and at the same 
time within the session, had under consideration, and in progress 
toward maturity, these constitutional amendments, and this act 
prohibiting slavery in all the territory the nation then owned. 

10 The constitutional amendments were introduced before, and 
passed after, the act enforcing the Ordinance of '87 ; so that, 
during the whole pendency of the act to enforce the Ordinance, 
the constitutional amendments were also pending. 

That Congress, consisting in all of seventy-six members, in- 

15 eluding sixteen of the framers of the original Constitution, as 
before stated, were pre-eminently our fathers who framed that 
part of " the Government under which we live," which is now 
claimed as forbidding the Federal Government to control slavery 
in the Federal Territories. 

20 Is it not a little presumptuous in any one at this day to affirm 
that the two things which that Congress deliberately framed, 
and carried to maturity at the same time, are absolutely incon- 
sistent with each other ? And does not such affirmation become 
impudently absurd when coupled with the other affirmation, 

25 from the same mouth, that those who did the two things alleged 
to be inconsistent, understood whether they really were inconsist- 
ent better than we — better than he who affirms that they were 
inconsistent ? 

It is surely safe to assume that the thirty-nine framers of the 

30 original Constitution, and the seventy-six members of the Con- 
gress which framed the amendments thereto, taken together, do 
certainly include those who may be fairly called '' our fathers who 
framed the government under which we live." And so assuming, 
I defy any man to show that any one of them ever, in his whole 



ADDRESS AT COOPER INSTITUTE JJ 

life, declared that, in his understanding, any proper division of 
local from Federal authority, or any part of the Constitution, 
forbade the Federal Government to control as to slavery in the 
Federal Territories. I go a step further. I defy any one to show 
that any living man in the whole world ever did, prior to the be- 5 
ginning of the present century (and I might almost say prior to 
the beginning of the last half of the present century), declare 
that, in his understanding, any proper division of local from 
Federal authority, or any part of the Constitution, forbade the 
Federal Government to control as to slavery in the Federal 10 
Territories. To those who now so declare I give not only ^^our 
fathers who framed the Government under which we live," but 
with them all other living men within the century in which it 
was framed, among whom to search, and they shall not be able 
to find the evidence of a single man agreeing with them. 15 

Now, and here, let me guard a little against being misunder- 
stood. I do not mean to say we are bound to follow implicitly 
in whatever our fathers did. To do so would be to discard all 
the lights of current experience — to reject all progress, all im- 
provement. What I do say is, that if we would supplant the 20 
opinions and policy of our fathers in any case, we should do so 
upon evidence so conclusive and argument so clear, that even 
their great authority, fairly considered and weighed, cannot 
stand ; and most surely not in a case whereof we ourselves 
declare they understood the question better than we. 25 

If any man at this day sincerely believes that a proper division 
of local from Federal authority, or any part of the Constitution, 
forbids the Federal Government to control as to slavery in the 
Federal Territories, he is right to say so and to enforce his posi- 
tion by all truthful evidence and fair argument which he can. 30 
But he has no right to mislead others, who have less access to 
history, and less leisure to study it, into the false belief that ^^ our 
fathers who framed the Government under which we live " were 
of the same opinion — thus substituting falsehood and deception 



78 LINCOLN 

for truthful evidence and fair argument. If any man at this day 
sincerely believes '' our fathers who framed the Government 
under which we live" used and applied principles, in other cases, 
which ought to have led them to understand that a proper divi- 
5 sion of local from Federal authority, or some part of the Con- 
stitution, forbids the Federal Government to control as to slavery 
in the Federal Territories, he is right to say so. But he should, 
at the same time, brave the responsibility of declaring that, in 
his opinion, he understands their principles better than they did 

lo themselves ; and especially should he not shirk that responsibility 
by asserting that they ^^ understood the question just as well, 
and even better, than we do now." 

But enough ! Let all who believe that ^' our fathers who 
framed the government under which we live understood this 

15 question just as well, and even better, than we do now," speak 
as they spoke, and act as they acted upon it. This is all Repub- 
licans ask — all Republicans desire — in relation to slavery. As 
those fathers marked it, so let it be again marked, as an evil not 
to be extended, but to be tolerated and protected only because 

20 of and so far as its actual presence among us makes that tolera- 
tion and protection a necessity. Let all the guaranties those 
fathers gave it be not grudgingly, but fully and fairly, main- 
tained. For this Republicans contend, and with this, so far as 
I know or believe, they will be content. 

25 And now, if they would listen — as I suppose they will not 
— I would address a few words to the Southern people. 

I would say to them : You consider yourselves a reasonable 
and a just people ; and I consider that in the general qualities 
of reason and justice you are not inferior to any other people. 

30 Still, when you speak of us Republicans, you do so only to de- 
nounce us as reptiles, or, at the best, as no better than outlaws. 
You will grant a hearing to pirates or murderers, but nothing 
like it to '^ Black Republicans." In all your contentions with 
one another, each of you deems an unconditional condemnation 



ADDRESS AT COOPER INSTITUTE 79 

of ' * Black Republicanism '^ as the first thing to be attended to. 
Indeed, such condemnation of us seems to be an indispensable 
prerequisite — license, so to speak — among you to be admitted 
or permitted to speak at all. Now, can you, or not, be prevailed 
upon to pause and to consider whether this is quite just to 5 
us, or even to yourselves ? Bring forward your charges and 
specifications, and then be patient long enough to hear us deny 
or justify. 

You say we are sectional. We deny it. That makes an issue ; 
and the burden of proof is upon you. You produce your proof ; 10 
and what is it ? Why, that our party has no existence in your 
section — gets no votes in your section. The fact is substantially 
true ; but does it prove the issue ? If it does, then in case we 
should, without change of principle, begin to get votes in your 
section, we should thereby cease to be sectional. You cannot 15 
escape this conclusion ; and yet, are you willing to abide by it } 
If you are, you will probably soon find that we have ceased to 
be sectional, for we shall get votes in your section this very year. 
You will then begin to discover, as the truth plainly is, that your 
proof does not touch the issue. The fact that we get no votes 20 
in your section is a fact of your making, and not of ours. And 
if there be fault in that fact, that fault is primarily yours, and 
remains so until you show that we repel you by some wrong 
principle or practice. If we do repel you by any wrong princi- 
ple or practice, the fault is ours ; but this brings you to where 25 
you ought to have started — to discussion of the right or wrong 
of our principle. If our principle, put in practice, would wrong 
your section for the benefit of ours, or for any other object, 
then our principle, and we with it, are sectional, and are justly 
opposed and denounced as such. Meet us, then, on the question 30 
of whether our principle, put in practice, would wrong your 
section; and so meet us as if it were possible that something 
may be said on our side. Do you accept the challenge ? No ? 
Then you really believe that the principle which " our fathers 



8o LINCOLN 

who framed the Government under which we live " thought 
so clearly right as to adopt it, and indorse it again and again, 
upon their official oaths, is in fact so clearly wrong as to de- 
mand your condemnation without a moment's consideration. 
5 Some of you delight to flaunt in our faces the warning against 
sectional parties given by Washington in his Farewell Address. 
Less than eight years before Washington gave that warning, he 
had, as President of the United States, approved and signed an 
act of Congress enforcing the prohibition of slavery in the North- 

10 western Territory, which act embodied the policy of the Govern- 
ment upon that subject up to and at the very moment he penned 
that warning ; and about one year after he penned it, he wrote 
Lafayette that he considered that prohibition a wise measure, 
expressing in the same connection his hope that we should at 

15 some time have a confederacy of free states. 

Bearing this in mind, and seeing that sectionalism has since 
arisen upon this same subject, is that warning a weapon in 
your hands against us, or in our hands against you? Could 
Washington himself speak, would he cast the blame of that 

20 sectionalism upon us, who sustain his policy, or upon you, who 
repudiate it ? We respect that warning of Washington, and we 
commend it to you, together with his example pointing to the 
right application of it. 

But you say you are conservative — eminently conservative 

25 — while we are revolutionary, destructive, or something of the 
sort. What is conservatism ? Is it not adherence to the old and 
tried, against the new and untried ? We stick to, contend for, 
the identical old policy on the point in controversy which was 
adopted by '^ our fathers who framed the Government under 

30 which we live " ; while you with one accord reject, and scout, 
and spit upon that old policy, and insist upon substituting some- 
thing new. True, you disagree among yourselves as to what 
that substitute shall be. You are divided on new propositions 
and plans, but you are unanimous in rejecting and denouncing 



ADDRESS AT COOPER INSTITUTE 8 1 

the old policy of the fathers. Some of you are for reviving the 
foreign slave trade ; some for a congressional slave-code for the 
Territories ; some for Congress forbidding the Territories to pro- 
hibit slavery within their limits ; some for maintaining slavery 
in the Territories through the judiciary; some for the '^gur-reat 5 
pur-rinciple " that " if one man v^ould enslave another, no third 
man should object," fantastically called ^^ Popular Sovereignty"; 
but never a man among you is in favor of Federal prohibition 
of slavery in Federal Territories, according to the practice of 
^^our fathers who framed the Government under which we live." 10 
Not one of all your various plans can show a precedent or an 
advocate in the century within which our Government origi- 
nated. Consider, then, whether your claim of conservatism for 
yourselves, and your charge of destructiveness against us, are 
based on the most clear and stable foundations. 15 

Again, you say we have made the slavery question more 
prominent than it formerly was. We deny it. We admit that 
it is more prominent, but we deny that we made it so. It was 
not we, but you, who discarded the old policy of the fathers. 
We resisted, and still resist, your innovation ; and thence comes 20 
the greater prominence of the question. Would you have that 
question reduced to its former proportions ? Go back to that 
old policy. What has been will be again, under the same con- 
ditions. If you would have the peace of the old times, readopt 
the precepts and policy of the old times. 25 

You charge that we stir up insurrections among your slaves. 
We deny it ; and what is your proof .'* Harper's Ferry ! John 
Brown ! ! John Brown was no Republican ; and you have 
failed to implicate a single Republican in his Harper's Ferry 
enterprise. If any member of our party is guilty in that 30 
matter, you know it, or you do not know it. If you do know 
it, you are inexcusable for not designating the man and prov- 
ing the fact. If you do not know it, you are inexcusable to 
assert it, and especially to persist in the assertion after you 



82 LINCOLN 

have tried and failed to make the proof. You need not be told 
that persisting in a charge which one does not know to be true, 
is simply malicious slander. 

Some of you admit that no Republican designedly aided or 
5 encouraged the Harper's Ferry affair, but still insist that our 
doctrines and declarations necessarily lead to such results. We 
do not believe it. We know we hold no doctrine, and make no 
declaration, which were not held to and made by " our fathers 
who framed the Government under which we live." You never 

10 dealt fairly by us in relation to this affair. When it occurred, 
some important state elections were near at hand, and you were 
in evident glee with the belief that, by charging the blame upon 
us, you could get an advantage of us in those elections. The 
elections came, and your expectations were not quite fulfilled. 

15 Every Republican knew that, as to himself at least, your charge 
was a slander, and he was not much inclined by it to cast his 
vote in your favor. Republican doctrines and declarations are 
accompanied with a continual protest against any interference 
whatever with your slaves, or with you about your slaves. 

20 Surely, this does not encourage them to revolt. True, we do, 
in common with '^ our fathers who framed the Government 
under which we live," declare our belief that slavery is wrong ; 
but the slaves do not hear us declare even this. For anything 
we say or do, the slaves would scarcely know there is a Repub- 

25 lican party. I believe they would not, in fact, generally know 
it but for your misrepresentations of us in their hearing. In 
your political contests among yourselves, each faction charges 
the other with sympathy with Black Republicanism ; and then, 
to give point to the charge, defines Black Republicanism to simply 

30 be insurrection, blood, and thunder among the slaves. 

Slave insurrections are no more common now than they were 
before the Republican party was organized. What induced the 
Southampton insurrection, twenty-eight years ago, in which at 
least three times as many lives were lost as at Harper's Ferry ? 



ADDRESS AT COOPER INSTITUTE 83 

You can scarcely stretch your very elastic fancy to the conclu- 
sion that Southampton was '^ got up by Black Republicanism." 
In the present state of things in the United States, I do not 
think a general, or even a very extensive, slave insurrection is 
possible. The indispensable concert of action cannot be obtained. 5 
The slaves have no means of rapid communication ; nor can 
incendiary freemen, black or white, supply it. The explosive 
materials are everywhere in parcels ; but there neither are, nor 
can be supplied, the indispensable connecting trains. 

Much is said by Southern people about the affection of slaves 10 
for their masters and mistresses ; and a part of it, at least, is true. 
A plot for an uprising could scarcely be devised and communi- 
cated to twenty individuals before some one of them, to save 
the life of a favorite master or mistress, would divulge it. This 
is the rule ; and the slave revolution in Hayti was not an excep- 1 5 
tion to it, but a case occurring under peculiar circumstances. 
The gunpowder plot of British history, though not connected 
with slaves, was more in point. In that case, only about twenty 
were admitted to the secret ; and yet one of them, in his anxiety 
to save a friend, betrayed the plot to that friend, and, by con- 20 
sequence, averted the calamity. Occasional poisonings from the 
kitchen, and open or stealthy assassinations in the field, and local 
revolts extending to a score or so, will continue to occur as the 
natural results of slavery ; but no general insurrection of slaves, 
as I think, can happen in this country for a long time. Whoever 25 
much fears, or much hopes, for such an event will be alike 
disappointed. 

In the language of Mr. Jefferson, uttered many years ago, 
'' It is still in our power to direct the process of emancipation 
and deportation peaceably, and in such slow degrees, as that the 30 
evil will wear off insensibly ; and their places be, pari passu^ 
filled up by free white laborers. If, on the contrary, it is left 
to force itself on, human nature must shudder at the prospect 
held up." 



84 LINCOLN 

Mr. Jefferson did not mean to say, nor do I, that the power 
of emancipation is in the Federal Government. He spoke of 
Virginia ; and, as to the power of emancipation, I speak of the 
slaveholding states only. 
5 The Federal Government, however, as we insist, has the 
power of restraining the extension of the institution — the 
power to insure that a slave insurrection shall never occur on 
any American soil which is now free from slavery. 

John Brown's effort was peculiar. It was not a slave insur- 

lo rection. It was an attempt by white men to get up a revolt 
among slaves, in which the slaves refused to participate. In 
fact, it was so absurd that the slaves, with all their ignorance, 
saw plainly enough it could not succeed. That affair, in its 
philosophy, corresponds with the many attempts, related in 

15 history, at the assassination of kings and emperors. An enthu- 
siast broods over the oppression of a people till he fancies him- 
self commissioned by Heaven to liberate them. He ventures 
the attempt, which ends in little else than in his own execution. 
Orsini's attempt on Louis Napoleon, and John Brown's attempt 

20 at Harper's Ferry, were, in their philosophy, precisely the same. 
The eagerness to cast blame on old England in the one case, and 
on New England in the other, does not disprove the sameness 
of the two things. 

And how much would it avail you, if you could, by the use 

25 of John Brown, Helper's book, and the like, break up the 
Republican organization ? Human action can be modified to 
some extent, but human nature cannot be changed. There is a 
judgment and a feeling against slavery in this nation, which cast 
at least a million and a half of votes. You cannot destroy that 

30 judgment and feeling — that sentiment — by breaking up the 
political organization which rallies around it. You can scarcely 
scatter and disperse an army which has been formed into order 
in the face of your heaviest fire ; b; t if you could, how much 
would you gain by forcing the sentiment which created it out of 



ADDRESS AT COOPER INSTITUTE 85 

the peaceful channel of the ballot box into some other channel ? 
What would that other channel probably be ? Would the number 
of John Browns be lessened or enlarged by the operation ? 

But you will break up the Union rather than submit to a 
denial of your constitutional rights. 5 

That has a somewhat reckless sound ; but it would be 
palliated, if not fully justified, were we proposing, by the 
mere force of numbers, to deprive you of some right plainly 
written down in the Constitution. But we are proposing no 
such thing. 10 

When you make these declarations you have a specific and 
well-understood allusion to an assumed constitutional right of 
yours to take slaves into the Federal Territories, and to hold 
them there as property. But no such right is specifically written 
in the Constitution. That instrument is literally silent about any 1 5 
such right. We, on the contrary, deny that such a right has 
any existence in the Constitution, even by implication. 

Your purpose, then, plainly stated, is that you will destroy the 
Government, unless you be allowed to construe and force the 
Constitution as you please, on all points in dispute between you 20 
and us. You will rule or ruin in all events. 

This, plainly stated, is your language. Perhaps you will say 
the Supreme Court has decided the disputed constitutional 
question in your favor. Not quite so. But waiving the lawyer's 
distinction between dictum and decision, the court has decided 25 
the question for you in a sort of way. The court has substan- 
tially said, it is your constitutional right to take slaves into the 
Federal Territories, and to hold them there as property. 

When I say the decision was made in a sort of way, I mean 
it was made in a divided court, by a bare majority of the judges, 30 
and they not quite agreeing with one another in the reasons for 
making it; that it was so made that its avowed supporters 
disagree with one another about its meaning, and that it was 
mainly based upon a mistaken statement of fact — the statement 



86 LINCOLN 

in the opinion that " the right of property in a slave is distinctly 
and expressly affirmed in the Constitution." 

An inspection of the Constitution will show that the right of 
property in a slave is not '^ distinctly and expressly affirmed " in 
5 it. Bear in mind, the judges do not pledge their judicial opinion 
that such right is impliedly affirmed in the Constitution; but 
they pledge their veracity that it is '^ distinctly and expressly " 
affirmed there — '^ distinctly," that is, not mingled with anything 
else — ^^ expressly," that is, in words meaning just that, without 

10 the aid of any inference, and susceptible of no other meaning. 

If they had only pledged their judicial opinion that such right 

is^ affirmed in the instrument by implication, it would be open 

to others to show that neither the word '^ slave " nor ^' slavery " 

is to be found in the Constitution, nor the word " property " 

15 even, in any connection with language alluding to the things 
slave or slavery; and that wherever in that instrument the 
slave is alluded to, he is called a ^^ person " ; and wherever his 
master's legal right in relation to him is alluded to, it is spoken 
of as " service or labor which may be due " — as a debt payable 

20 in service or labor. Also it would be open to show, by con- 
temporaneous history, that this mode of alluding to slaves and 
slavery, instead of speaking of them, was employed on purpose 
to exclude from the Constitution the idea that there could be 
property in man. 

25 To show all this is easy and certain. 

When this obvious mistake of the judges shall be brought to 
their notice, is it not reasonable to expect that they will with- 
draw the mistaken statement, and reconsider the conclusion 
based upon it? 

30 And then it is to be remembered that " our fathers who 
framed the Government under which we live " — the men 
who made the Constitution — decided this same constitutional 
question in our favor long ago : decided it without a division 
among themselves when making the decision ; without division 



ADDRESS AT COOPER INSTITUTE 8/ 

among themselves about the meaning of it after it was made, 
and so far as any evidence is left, without basing it upon any 
mistaken statement of facts. 

Under all these circumstances, do you really feel yourself 
justified to break up this Government unless such a court de- 5 
cision as yours is shall be at once submitted to as a conclusive 
and final rule of political action ? 

But you will not abide the election of a Republican president ! 
In that supposed event, you say, you will destroy the Union ; 
and then, you say, the great crime of having destroyed it will 10 
be upon us ! 

That is cool. A highwayman holds a pistol to my ear and 
mutters through his teeth, ^^ Stand and deliver, or I shall kill 
you, and then you will be a murderer ! " 

To be sure, what the robber demanded of me — my money 1 5 
— was my own ; and I had a clear right to keep it ; but it was 
no more my own than my vote is my own ; and the threat of 
death to me, to extort my money, and the threat of destruction 
to the Union, to extort my vote, can scarcely be distinguished 
in principle. 20 

A few words now to Republicans. It is exceedingly desirable 
that all parts of this great confederacy shall be at peace and in 
harmony one with another. Let us Republicans do our part to 
have it so. Even though much provoked, let us do nothing 
through passion and ill temper. Even though the Southern 25 
people will not so much as listen to us, let us calmly consider 
their demands, and yield to them if, in our deliberate view of 
our duty, we possibly can. Judging by all they say and do, and 
by the subject and nature of their controversy with us, let us 
determine, if we can, what will satisfy them. 30 

Will they be satisfied if the Territories be unconditionally sur- 
rendered to them ? We know they will not. In all their present 
complaints against us, the Territories are scarcely mentioned. 
Invasions and insurrections are the rage now. Will it satisfy 



88 LINCOLN 

them if in the future we have nothing to do with invasions and 
insurrections ? We know it will not. We so know, because we 
know we never had anything to do with invasions and insurrec- 
tions ; and yet this total abstaining does not exempt us from 
5 the charge and the denunciation. 

The question recurs, What will satisfy them ? Simply this : 
we must not only let them alone, but we must somehow con- 
vince them that we do let them alone. This, we know by ex- 
perience, is no easy task. We have been so trying to convince 

lo them from the very beginning of our organization, but with no 
success. In all our platforms and speeches we have constantly 
protested our purpose to let them alone ; but this has had no 
tendency to convince them. Alike unavailing to convince them 
is the fact that they have never detected a man of us in any 

15 attempt to disturb them. 

These natural and apparently adequate means all failing, 
what will convince them ? This, and this only : cease to call 
slavery wro7tg^ and join them in calling it right. And this must 
be done thoroughly — done in acts as well as in words. Silence 

20 will not be tolerated — we must place ourselves avowedly with 

' them. Senator Douglas's new sedition law must be enacted and 

enforced, suppressing all declarations that slavery is wrong? 

whether made in politics, in presses, in pulpits, or in private. 

We must arrest and return their fugitive slaves with greedy 

25 pleasure. We must pull down our Free-State constitutions. 
The whole atmosphere must be disinfected from all taint of 
opposition to slavery, before they will cease to believe that all 
their troubles proceed from us. 

I am quite aware they do not state their case precisely in this 

30 way. Most of them would probably say to us, '' Let us alone ; 
do nothing to us, and say what you please about slavery.'' But 
we do let them alone, — have never disturbed them, — so that, 
after all, it is what we say which dissatisfies them. They will 
continue to accuse us of doing, until we cease saying. 



ADDRESS AT COOPER INSTITUTE 89 

I am also aware they have not as yet in terms demanded the 
overthrow of our Free-State constitutions. Yet those constitu- 
tions declare the wrong of slavery with more solemn emphasis 
than do all other sayings against it ; and when all these other 
sayings shall have been silenced, the overthrow of these consti- 5 
tutions will be demanded, and nothing be left to resist the 
demand. It is nothing to the contrary that they do not demand 
the whole of this just now. Demanding what they do and for 
the reason they do, they can voluntarily stop nowhere short of 
this consummation. Holding as they do that slavery is morally 10 
right and socially elevating, they cannot cease to demand a full 
national recognition of it as a legal right and a social blessing. 

Nor can we justifiably withhold this on any ground save our 
conviction that slavery is wrong. If slavery is right, all words, 
acts, laws, and constitutions against it are themselves wrong, and 1 5 
should be silenced and swept away. If it is right, we cannot 
justly object to its nationality — its universality ; if it is wrongs 
they cannot justly insist upon its extension — its enlargement. 
All they ask we could readily grant, if we thought slavery right ; 
all we ask they could as readily grant, if they thought it wrong. 20 
Their thinking it right and our thinking it wrong is the precise 
fact upon which depends the whole controversy. Thinking it 
right, as they do, they are not to blame for desiring its full recog- 
nition as being right ; but thinking it wrong, as we do, can we 
yield to them ? Can we cast our votes with their view, and 25 
against our own.? In view of our moral, social, and political 
responsibilities, can we do this ? 

Wrong as we think slavery is, we can yet afford to let it alone 
where it is, because that much is due to the necessity arising 
from its actual presence in the nation ; but can we, while our 30 
votes will prevent it, allow it to spread into the national Terri- 
tories, and to overrun us here in these free states ? If our sense 
of duty forbids this, then let us stand by our duty fearlessly and 
effectively. Let us be diverted by none of those sophistical 



90 LINCOLN 

contrivances wherewith we are so industriously plied and be- 
labored — contrivances such as groping for some middle ground 
between the right and the wrong : vain as the search for a man 
who should be neither a living man nor a dead man ; such as a 
5 policy of '^ don't care " on a question about which all true men 
do care ; such as Union appeals beseeching true Union men to 
yield to Disunionists, reversing the divine rule and calling not 
the sinners but the righteous to repentance ; such as invocations 
to Washington, imploring men to unsay what Washington said 

10 and undo what Washington did. 

Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations 
against us, nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction to 
the government, nor of dungeons to ourselves. Let us have faith 
that right makes might, and in that faith let us to the end dare 

15 to do our duty as we understand it. 



COMMENTS, TOPICS, AND QUESTIONS ON 

LINCOLN'S ADDRESS AT COOPER 

INSTITUTE 

1. To C. C. Nott, who was preparing a revised edition of the 
Cooper Institute speech, Lincoln wrote that he was ^' not much of a 
literary man." How far do you consider Lincoln's opinion of himself 
justified ? 

2. The Bible, '' ^sop's Fables," '' Robinson Crusoe," and " Pil- 
grim's Progress " were Lincoln's friends. In what respects are a few 
books that are universally acknowledged to be masterpieces of more 
value to a person who reads them thoroughly than many books which 
are merely acquaintances rather than real friends ? 

3. What are the main points in Lincoln's Cooper Institute 
speech ? 

4. Where in the speech do you suppose it was that Lincoln raised 
a laugh by remarking parenthetically that he had " never known of a 
man who had been able to whip his wife into loving him " ? 



COMMENTS, TOPICS, AND QUESTIONS 91 

5. If you own a copy of the speech, write in it '' Applause " at the 
places where you think the speech was probably applauded when first 
delivered. Give your reasons for each selection that you make. 

6. In a letter to C. C. Nott, Lincoln held that the word " court " 
properly governed the plural ^' have." What are your reasons for agree- 
ing or disagreeing with Lincoln in this point of grammar ? 

7. What was Cooper Institute.^ 

8. What persons of your neighborhood heard Lincoln speak ? 

9. What Hght on Lincoln's character is thrown by Henry E. 
Wing in his pamphlet, " When Lincoln Kissed Me," published by 
Eaton & Mains.? 

10. Why do travelers go far out of their way in order to see in the 
Leland Hotel, Springfield, Illinois, the desk on which Lincoln wrote 
his first inaugural address ? 

11. Point out what trait of Lincoln is shown by the following 
anecdote told by J. M. Buckley, June 26, 191 3 : 

When I lived in Dover, Abraham Lincoln visited the city. Osten- 
sibly he came to that part of the country to place his son at school in 
Phillips Exeter Academy. In addition he took occasion to spread his 
sentiments and familiarize his personality throughout New England. At 
the depot as Lincoln stepped off the car several hundred people were 
waiting to see him. Looking around, Lincoln saw a man of great height. 
He walked quickly to him, turned his back, and straightened up. The 
citizen took the challenge. Lincoln in his boots stood six feet four 
inches, but the New Hampshire man unrolled himself till his head was 
six feet six inches above the platform. Lincoln joined heartily in the 
laugh of the crowd. 

12. In the following list of notable orations, point out those by 
speakers contemporary with Lincoln : 

Demosthenes : On the Crown Pitt : War in America Denounced 

Cranmer : On the Eve of his Fox : British Defeat in America 

Execution Bancroft: The People, in Art, 
Cromwell : On the Opening of Government, and Religion 

Parliament Calhoun : On the Compromise of 
Sidney: Speech on the Scaffold 1850 

Chesterfield : Against the Gin Bill Webster : First Bunker Hill Monu- 
Chatham : On the Right to Tax ment Oration 

America Burke : Conciliation with America 



92 LINCOLN i 

1 

Sheridan : Warren Hastings Blaine : On the Death of Garfield ' 

Wendell Phillips : On the Murder Cleveland : First Inaugural Ad- ; 

of Lovejoy dress j 

RufusChoate: Eulogy of Webster Grady: The Old South and the j 

Sumner: The Crime against New i 

Kansas Reed : Speech closing Tariff De- i 

Seward : The Irrepressible Con- bate I 

flict Beecher : Speech in Liverpool ! 

Douglas : Speeches in Senatorial Bryan : Crown of Thorns Speech \ 

Campaign Cicero : Against Catiline \ 

13. What reasons had Lincoln for holding that the framers of the \ 
Constitution believed slavery to be in the course of ultimate extinction? \ 

14. Judge Douglas held that the reason why Ohio was free was : 
not because the Ordinance of 1787 prohibited slavery northwest of j 
the Ohio -River, but because Ohio chose to make her own laws. In i 
his Columbus speech he roused his audience to fervid enthusiasm by : 
exclaiming, ^' Gentlemen of Ohio, you are a free state because you ] 
chose to be free." Point out the clash between Lincoln's views and ] 
Douglas's with regard to the Ordinance of 1787. i 

15. Observe Lincoln's adroitness in argument on page 73, where, ' 
when the hearer expects the sentence to be filled out by the words j 
" a line dividing local from Federal authority," the speaker substitutes ! 
instead the words " some sufficient reason for opposing such prohibi- I 
tion in that case." What other examples of especial ingenuity in \ 
argument do you find in the speech ? 

16. Every one agrees that Lincoln's diction is usually simple. Com- 
pile a list of difficult words that you find in this address. , 

17. What sentences of the address seem to you like hinges or : 
bridges connecting main parts of the thought? \ 

18. Which paragraph requires two or three readings in order to ■ 
be entirely clear to you ? 

19. Prepare a brief of the speech, using as the basis for main divi- 
sions these points, which you are to express in sentence form : ] 

a. The right of the Federal Government to control as to slavery ! 
in Federal Territories. 

d. Lincoln's answer to the charges brought by the Southern people ; 

against the Republicans. i 



COMMENTS, TOPICS, AND QUESTIONS 93 

c. Lincoln's advice to the Republicans. 

20. What does the name '' John Brown " mean to you? 

21. Note the figure of speech in the following and find other 
similarly lucid figures : " The explosive materials are everywhere in 
parcels ; but there neither are, nor can be supplied, the indispensable 
connecting trains." 

22. In 1857, Hinton Rowan Helper published a severe criticism 
of the slavery system. His book, *' The Impending Crisis of the 
South," is referred to by Lincoln on page 84. The book had an 
enormous sale. 

23. Note the colloquial omission of "that " in such sentences as the 
following : " We know they will not." What seems to you to be the 
general tone of the speech — easy and informal or stiff and formal ? 

24. Comment on or explain the following: Northwestern Terri- 
tory^ Missouri Compromise^ corporal oath^ Dred Scott case^ burden 
of proof ^ Farewell Address^ Harper^ s Ferry ^ Gunpowder Plot ^ pari 
passu, OrsinVs attempt on Louis Napoleon, sedition law. 

25. Where and what does Lincoln quote from the Bible .^^ 

26. Prepare a speech on the right or wrong of one of the following : 
industrial slavery, war, capital punishment, strikes. 

27. Write and prepare to speak a eulogy of Lincoln, McKinley, or 
Cleveland. 

28. Give your candid opinion as to the relative merits of Lincoln 
and Douglas as orators, so far as you have formed an opinion from 
their speeches given in this volume. 

29. In the portion of his speech in which he addressed " a few 
words to the Southern people," Lincoln said, '' Still, when you speak 
of us Republicans, you do so only to denounce us as reptiles." What 
have you observed to be the present feeling between people of the 
South and of the North 1 What touching illustrations of the present 
feeling were furnished by incidents that took place during the summer 
of 1913? 

30. What is the greatest problem which both the North and the 
South have now to solve 1 What suggestions have you to offer for its 
solution ? 

31. What was the great problem which people of Lincoln's time 
had to solve ? What was Lincoln's solution of the problem ? 



NOTES 

(The figures in heavy-faced type refer to pages, the figures in lighter type to Hnes.) 

MACAULAY'S COPYRIGHT SPEECHES 

18 1 Sir : see p. 46. — 7 friend : Thomas Noon Talfourd, called 
Sergeant Talfourd. See pp. 9-1 1. Talfourd, besides being a distin- 
guished lawyer and a member of Parliament, contributed essays to the 
Edinburgh Revieiv and wrote a successful tragedy. — 24 act of attainder : 
a bill passed by Parliament extinguishing a person's civil rights and 
pronouncing sentence of death against him. 

19 10 Paley : William Paley was an eighteenth-century writer whose 
books on philosophy and on the evidences of Christianity were all im- 
bued with his fundamental maxim that whatever is expedient is right. 
See Lippincott's *' Pronouncing Biographical Dictionary." — 23 modes 
of succession : note that Macaulay explains a number of systems of 
inheritance, the first (1. 24) being primogeniture; the second (1. 25) 
being gavelkind ; the third (1. 26) being borough English. The point 
that the speaker is trying to make is that the disposition of property 
at death is something to be settled by the law established in different 
sections of the kingdom ; there is no natural right of inheritance, no 
divine right. So the matter of copyright after the death of an author 
is something to be settled by Parliament as seems best to that body, 
not according to any divine law, but according to what seems most 
expedient. — 32 intestate : not having made a will. 

21 32 Maecenas : Maecenas and PolUo were the patrons of Horace, 
Virgil, and other Roman authors ; the Medici family were the patrons 
of poets, architects, painters, and sculptors at Florence, Italy, in the 
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries ; Louis the Fourteenth was the patron 
of French writers of the seventeenth century ; Lord Halifax was the pa- 
tron of Addison and Steele in the early eighteenth century in England ; 
Lord Oxford was the patron of Pope and Swift. 

95 



96 MACAULAY 

23 15 East India Company's monopoly : see p. 4, 11. 28-34 of Macaulay's 
" Essays on Clive and Hastings " (Ginn and Company's Standard 
English Classics). 

24 17 Prince Esterhazy : Paul Antony Esterhazy de Galantha repre- 
sented Austria at the court of London from 1830 to 1838, and so his 
name was familiar to Macaulay's hearers. Esterhazy owned larger 
estates in land than any other subject of Austria. 

25 4 Juvenal : the greatest Roman satirical poet, two of whose six- 
teen powerful satires Dr. Samuel Johnson imitated in his poems entitled 
" London " and " Vanity of Human Wishes." 

26 21 Blenheim : Blenheim Park is a magnificent English estate given 
by Parliament to the Duke of Marlborough for his victories over the 
French, especially the battle of Blenheim, which took place August 13, 
1704. See Baedeker's '' Great Britain," a very useful reference book. — 
Strathfieldsaye : the estate of the Duke of Wellington, who defeated 
Napoleon at the battle of Waterloo in June, 181 5. 

2712 Cowley's Poems: Abraham Cowley (1618-1667) was more ad- 
mired by his contemporaries than any other poet of his time, not except- 
ing John Milton, who is now ranked high while Cowley is almost 
forgotten. — 13 Pope : Macaulay says of Alexander Pope in another 
essay, '' He was a great master of invective and sarcasm. He could 
dissect a character in terse and sonorous couplets brilliant with an- 
tithesis." Pope's question about Cowley occurs in one of his imitations 
of the Roman poet Horace. See also 39 12. — 16 Bolingbroke : a brilliant 
but superficial English statesman and author. An edition of his works 
in five volumes was pubhshed by a certain David Mallet in 1754. By 
18 1 4, when according to Talfourd's copyright bill the copyright on these 
books would have expired (sixty years having elapsed since the author's 
death), Bolingbroke's works were no longer in demand. — 18 Paternoster 
Row : if you have a Bible published in England, see whether or not the 
publisher's address is given as Paternoster Row, which has long been 
the center of the London book-publishing business. Consult Baedekers 
" London." — 19 Hayley : Southey once said of WilHam Hayley, an 
English poet whose work is feeble in the extreme, *' Everything about 
that man is good except his poetry." Hayley's " Triumphs of Temper " 
was published in 1781. — 31 Milton's granddaughter: the history of the 
copyright of Milton's " Paradise Lost " is given on p. 8. The Tonson to 
whom Macaulay refers on p. 28, 1. 19, was a later owner of the copy- 
right than Simmons, the original purchaser. Note on p. 15 how the 



NOTES 97 

most recent copyright law tries to prevent such a state of poverty as 
that to which Milton's granddaughter, Mrs. Elizabeth Foster, was re- 
duced. Garrick's benefit performance of " Comus " for her was given 
April 5, 1750, and brought her ;^i30. She died May 9, 1754. 

2918 "Tom Jones": Henry Fielding's greatest novel. Two other 
novels by Fielding, " Joseph Andrews " and " Amelia " are mentioned 
on p. 42, 1. 34, and p. 43, 1. i. 

30 1 Wilberforce : the religious treatise which Macaulay speaks of as 
" celebrated " was entitled ^' A Practical View of the Prevailing ReHgious 
System of Professed Christians contrasted with Real Christianity," was 
published in 1797, and by 1826 had been issued in fifteen editions in 
England and twenty-five in the United States. William Wilberforce 
gave much money to the poor, and was an ardent supporter of the 
movement to abolish slavery by act of Parliament. 

31 11 " Clarissa '* : one of Samuel Richardson's best novels was " Cla- 
rissa Harlowe." Another of his novels, " Sir Charles Grandison," is re- 
ferred to on p. 42, 1. 33. — 28 Camden's " Britannia " : William Camden 
( 1 551-1623), master of Westminster School and founder of the Camden 
professorship of history at Oxford University, published in Latin in 
1586 a celebrated antiquarian work entitled "Britannia." It is still of 
use to historians. 

" 33 21 piratical booksellers : persons who publish books regardless of 
the owner of the copyright. 

351 Mr. Greene: see p. 12. — 2 my noble friend : see pp. 11-15, for 
the substance of Lord Mahon's remarks. 

38 1 ** Persuasion " : published in 18 18, the year after the death of its 
author. Miss Jane Austen. Other novels by this writer are " Sense and 
Sensibility," " Pride and Prejudice," " Mansfield Park," " Emma," and 
" Northanger Abbey." Professor Goldwin Smith said of " Persuasion," 
" Though as a whole not so well constructed as others of Jane Austen's 
novels, it may be said to contain the finest touches of her art." See 
" Jane Austen : Her Contemporaries and Herself," by Walter Herries 
Pollock (published by Longmans, Green, & Co.) for an interesting 
comparison of Miss Austen and Madame D'Arblay. — 5 ''Evelina": 
published in 1778 when the author. Miss Frances Burney, was twenty- 
six years old. Miss Burney married Count D'Arblay in 1793, and so is 
referred to by Macaulay as Madame D'Arblay. She died in 1840. In 
1843 Macaulay published in the Edinburgh Review an essay on the life 
of Madame !D'Arblay. 



98 MACAU LAY 

39 8 Flecknoe : a rather vain and stupid scribbler who was contem- 
porary with Dryden. Dryden chose this writer's name with the patro- 
nymic Mac as the title of a satire, " MacFlecknoe," in which another 
contemporary poet Shadwell and other minor writers of the time were 
bitterly satirized. Flecknoe wrote several unsuccessful plays ; for ex- 
ample, "Fashionable Young Ladies" (" Damoiselles a la Mode"), 
published in 1667. — Settle: Elkanah Settle (1648-17 24) won reputa- 
tion in his time by a rimed tragedy, " The Empress of Morocco," 
which Dryden considered, as did Macaulay, inferior work. He was 
satirized by Dryden in *' Absalom and Achitophel," and by Pope in 
" Dunciad." 

40 32 Schiller : Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller is known as 
the great national poet of Germany. He wrote the " Robbers " in 1777, 
when he was only eighteen years old. ** Wilhelm Tell," his most popular 
drama, was published in 1804. — 33 Goethe: Johann Wolfgang von 
Goethe, the most illustrious German writer, published his novel, " Sor- 
rows of Young Werther " (which Macaulay in his speech referred to as 
"Sorrows of Werther"), in 1774. His masterpiece, the tragedy of 
" Faust," was published in two parts, the first in 1806 and the second in 
1830. It is said that for more than thirty years before the first part was 
published Goethe had been turning the subject over and over in his 
mind. Goethe's literary achievements are perhaps Macaulay's finest 
example to prove his contention that the greatest works of genius are 
produced by men in their mature years. 

41 25 no work of the imagination : Macaulay here leaves out of account 
the poetry of some of the romantic poets of England, for instance, " The 
Ancient Mariner," by Coleridge, written when he was considerably 
under thirty-five. 

43 7 the committee : see pp. 12-15. 



LINCOLN'S ADDRESS AT COOPER INSTITUTE 

68 1 Mr. President : William Cullen Bryant presided over the meet- 
ing. See p. 60. — 6 speech last autumn at Columbus : see pp. 55-58. — 
24 the '* thirty-nine *' : George Washington, President and deputy from 
Virginia; New Hampshire — John Langdon and Nicholas Oilman; 
Massachusetts — Nathaniel Gorham and Rufus King; Connecticut — 
William Samuel Johnson and Roger Sherman ; New York — Alexander 
Hamilton; New Jersey — William Livingston, David Brearley, William 
Paterson, Jonathan Dayton ; Pennsylvania — Benjamin Franklin, 
Thomas Mifflin, Robert Morris, George Clymer, Thomas Fitzsimmons, 
Jared IngersoU, James Wilson, Gouverneur Morris; Delaware — George 
Read, Gunning Bedford, Jr., John Dickinson, Richard Bassett, Jacob 
Broom; Maryland — James McHenry, Daniel of St. Thomas Jenifer, 
Daniel Carroll; Virginia — John Blair and James Madison, Jr.; North 
Carolina — William Blount, Richard Dobbs Spaight, Hugh Williamson; 
South Carolina — John Rutledge, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, Charles 
Pinckney, Pierce Butler; Georgia — William Few and Abraham Baldwin. 

69 9 It is this : by reference to the extracts from Senator Douglas's 
Columbus speech, note that the senator never explicitly stated the 
question as sharply as Lincoln states it. Consider whether or not you 
think Lincoln has stated the question exactly as it formed itself in 
Douglas's own mind. 

70 11 Ordinance of '87 : see p. 92, topic 14, and H. von Hoist's " Con- 
stitutional and Political History of the United States." The plan for the 
government of the territory northwest of the Ohio River included the 
prohibition forever of slavery and involuntary servitude, but provided 
for the surrender of fugitives from whom labor or service was lawfully 
claimed in any one of the original states. The Ordinance was unani- 
mously adopted July 13, 1787, by the states. The only member of Con- 
gress who voted against it, when an act for enforcing it was passed on 
August 17, 1789, by the first Congress held under the new Constitution, 
was Yates of New York. The Ordinance provided that as the population 
increased, the Territory was to be divided into states, not more than 

99 : , 



lOO LINCOLN 

five in number, each of which was then to be admitted to the Union on 
an equal footing with the original states. Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, 
Michigan, and Wisconsin were the outcome of this provision. 

71 25 giving : if this were " gave," what improvement would there be 
in the grammatical construction of the sentence ? 

72 29 the Missouri question: settled by Congress in 1820. The Mis- 
souri Compromise admitted Missouri as a slave state but forever pro- 
hibited slavery in the remainder of the Louisiana Purchase north of 
latitude 36^ 30'. This latitude is the southern boundary of Missouri, the 
northern boundary of North Carolina, and for most of its length the 
northern boundary of Tennessee. 

73 23 corporal oaths : oaths ratified by touching a sacred object 
("The Concise Oxford Dictionary"). What sacred object is usually 
touched in the taking of a corporal oath ? 

74 9 grounds of expediency : compare 19 3. 

75 27 Dred Scott case : Dred Scott, a negro slave from Missouri, was 
taken by his master into a part of the United States in which slavery 
had been forbidden by the Missouri Compromise. Then he was taken 
back to Missouri and sold. He brought suit against his master for* 
assault and batter}^ on the ground that by going into free territory he 
had become a free man. The suit passed from the lower courts on to the 
Supreme Court, where in 1857 a decision was rendered, denying that 
Scott was a free man, explaining that negroes were property and not per- 
sons, holding that they could not as citizens sue in the courts, and assert- 
ing that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional. See Andrew C. 
McLaughlin's " A History of the American Nation," and compare 85 23. 

80 6 Farewell Address : the warning against sectional parties may be 
found on p. 7 of the Standard English Classics edition (Ginn and Com- 
pany) of Washington's " Farewell Address " and Webster's " First 
Bunker Hill Oration." 

817 " Popular Sovereignty '* : the northern Democrats under the 
leadership of Senator Douglas held to the doctrine announced in 1S47 
by Senator Lewis Cass, of Michigan, that Congress ought not to inter- 
fere with the domestic concerns of the territories ; that the existence of 
slavery was a question to be dealt with by the people of the territories. 
See p. 56. 

82 33 Southampton insurrection : an uprising of slaves took place in 
1831 in Southampton County. Virginia, under the leadership of Nat 
Turner, a negro. 



NOTES lOI 

83 15 slave revolution in Hayti : Toussaint L'Ouverture, in August, 
1 791, when a general insurrection of the slaves of Hayti began, saved 
the lives of his master's family, obtained the chief command of the 
negroes, and led them to independence through the aid of the French 
and in opposition to the English. See whether you can find in some 
encyclopedia what treachery overtook L'Ouverture finally. — 17 gun- 
powder plot : Guy Fawkes and others planned to explode thirty-six 
barrels of gunpowder in a vault under the House of Lords on Novem- 
ber 5, 1605, so as to harm as many Protestant peers as possible. A 
Catholic peer. Lord Mounteagle, received a warning not to attend 
Parliament that day, and told of the warning he had received. Fawkes 
was found with matches and a dark lantern in one of the cellars, was 
tried, and was executed. Thus, through the desire of one of the con- 
spirators to save Lord Mounteagle, the plot was exposed. — 31 pari 
passu: Jefferson meant by this Latin phrase that as fast as negroes 
should be emancipated or deported their places should be taken by free 
white laborers. The phrase literally means with equal step or pace. 

84 19 Orsini^s attempt on Louis Napoleon : Felice Orsini, an Italian 
• revolutionist, was the chief of a band of conspirators who tried to 
assassinate Napoleon III (Charles Louis Napoleon Bonaparte) in 
January, 1858. Orsini was executed in March of the same year. As he 
had been a persistent revolutionist, had been confined in prison, and 
had escaped to England, some people thought they saw a cause to 
blame England for his attempt on the life of Louis Napoleon. — 
25 Helper's book: see p. 93. 

85 14 property : compare 75 30. The northern Republican contention 
was that negro slaves were considered by the Constitution as persons 
" held to labor," and not as property ; that they were property only by 
state law. 

88 21 new sedition law : Senator Douglas proposed that the committee 
on the judiciary be instructed to report a bill providing for the suppres- 
sion of conspiracies, or combinations, in any state or territory with intent 
to invade, assail, or molest the government, inhabitants, property, or 
institutions of any state or territory in the Union. 



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